TV can’t reboot its way out of its past errors, any more than an individual can fix their past trauma by reliving it, over and over again.
Essays
And Just Like That… the Viewer Cringes
The show’s white, middle-age, upper-class liberals clumsily realizing their privilege are an accurate mirror of some of its viewers.
Refreshing the Fresh Prince
The turn toward an aesthetic of Black excellence on TV reveals a mode of self-fashioning that celebrates neoliberal markers of merit and prestige.
Fixing Nostalgia: “Star Trek” Boldly Goes to Less Utopian Futures
“Picard” is perhaps the least utopian of any “Star Trek” media. But’s that because its political pragmatism shows how to build a better reality.
The Reboot Will Be Televised
“Star Trek: Picard,” “And Just Like That…,” “Bel-Air,” “Reboot”: even within our age of the reboot, old stories offer new insights.
Who Picks the Next Kings of Tech?
“I’m looking for [companies] where, you know, at the end of it, there’s some big payoff… You know, would that excite me?”
“Succession” & Prestige TV’s Fascism Problem
Prestige TV, which has a presumptively liberal audience, churns out a steady diet of illiberal fare. Shows like “Succession” force the viewer to ask why.
On Our Nightstands: September 2023
A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.
Whose Homeland? Whose Security?
American overseas imperialism functions most powerfully through its infrastructures—debt, education, bureaucracy, mobility—filtered through DHS.
Borders Kill, but Not the Passport Privileged
In her new book, Belén Fernández is driven by an urge to expose empire’s death-making machine, even if it means exposing her own absurd participation in it.
Weaving a Feminist Cyberlaw
Women invented cyberspace. Yet today’s internet rewards misogyny with fame, wealth, and power. Could it be otherwise?
In the Age of Artpocalypse: Beauty and Damage on TV
Whether destroying the Mona Lisa or whole museums, why does contemporary film and TV want us to watch the art world burn?
Difficult Empathies
“What would a successful war novel look like? This question concealed a deeper question I had: What would a truthful Kashmir novel look like?”
Let Them Eat Pedagogy
Changing myself and my classroom might help me renew my one-year contract, but it cannot prepare me to demand an alternative.
Queer Leadership, Stronger Universities
It is powerful and affirming to consider the unique qualities that queerness brings to leadership.
Slanting the History of Handwriting
Whatever writing is today, it is not self-evident.
What Really Makes Cities Global?
To ask what kind of city Los Angeles is today is, also, to wonder what kind of city it could be tomorrow.
The Protest Is Over—But Its Politics Remain
Ten years later, the Gezi Park protests continue to shape Turkish politics.
B-Sides: Joyce Carol Oates’s “them”
“‘Them’ remakes the naturalist tradition of novels for a society that seems … incapable of ending an addiction to racist violence.”
Protean Environment and Political Possibilities
As the planet warms, environmental destruction obliges us to revise the technoscience expertise and institutions once based on colonial legacies.