Three recent poetry collections have cemented the rise of what we might call the “metalyrical”: poetry that interrogates the conditions of its own expression.
Essays
The Secluded Self: Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” @100
Why did Americans start distrusting small towns? The answer is one book, in which a woman moves from the city—and loses her freedom.
How the Welfare State Became the Neoliberal Order
Today's neoliberalism emerged when US policymakers built New Deal–style projects abroad—for private gain rather than the public good.
When the Revolution Left Kate Millett Behind
What was happening in the streets of Iran—what one white feminist couldn’t see—was a revolution, looking for different freedoms than the West.
Unruly Objects
By making familiar objects strange, two new books of poetry reveal the limits of overly simple critique.
Karen Carpenter’s Afterlives
Everyone knows that feeling when a song—written by someone else in some other place or time—sees you so completely in the present. But how does that happen?
Can Tech Ever Be Good?
Companies like Uber and Airbnb rely on the exploitation of users and workers—and some investors are pushing back. Welcome to the “techlash.”
Paris Doesn’t Always Have To Be Burning
The documentary "Paris Is Burning" obscured the ordinary lives of queer people of color, but new footage reveals how the film could have been different.
B-Sides: Daisy Ashford’s “The Young Visiters”
A child’s novel can be funny by revealing how much a child does know, after all.
Ferrante Breaks the Frame
A defaced family photograph—with an ancestor cut out—reveals to Ferrante’s new protagonist how women are erased by the words and deeds of men.
For the Slow Work of Critique in Critical Times
With so many crises—environmental, humanitarian, racial, viral, and economic—the work of “critique” can seem to be a luxury. But is it?
The Once and Future Temp
What can the history of the temp-work industry teach us about the precarity of modern working life?
Can Comics Save Your Life?
In lockdown, one shop asked for people to submit comics of “a utopian world after we survive this moment.” Hundreds around the world answered.
The New Silk Road: Dordoi Bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
At the largest bazaar in Central Asia, an informal secondhand market has become something like a metropolis unto itself.
Dear Knausgaard
“There’s a passage early on in Book 2 that’s so smug, so macho (in a literary way), that’s so—ugh! I can’t explain it.”
India in COVID-19: A Tragedy Foretold
The lockdown had terrible consequences on India’s informal economy, and will deepen the socioeconomic inequalities that divide the country.
Extra Credit: How to Discuss the Internet
A resource for teaching and discussing the internet, including a reading list, podcast, and discussion questions.
Settler Fantasies, Televised
House-hunting and home-improvement TV shows are premised on the settler fantasy of property ownership—and that fantasy’s relationship to whiteness.
All Tomorrow’s Warnings
Both left and right employ “speculative nonfiction” to imagine the world after climate change. But who will win the battle of the futurists?
The Spy Who Read Me
Women writing about women spies who are, themselves, writing. What’s next for women’s espionage writing?
