Category
Essays
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Law, Written in Spray Paint
“Paying attention to the temporary markings etched onto the asphalt, we are afforded a glimpse into the otherwise hidden world that lies below the city’s surface.”
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Tickets Are for Remembering
Playbills, programs, tickets: such physical documents are no longer part of seeing a show on Broadway. Does it matter?
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“Why Do We Go On Pretending?”: Theater at the End of the World
The theatre is where we go to remind ourselves that we are all dying together, and to live better for it.
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Haiti’s Blueprints of Black Sovereignty
How was a self-proclaimed Black nation to define its role in an Atlantic world deeply entwined with enslaved Black labor?
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Enemy of the State
Félix Darfour accused the post-independence Haitian republic with corruption. He lost his life for it.
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Haiti: What Sovereignty?
After winning independence, the West rushed to teach Haiti a lesson so that their revolutionary experience would not recur on the continent. Haiti suffers the repercussions of such attacks to this day.
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The U.S. Has Never Forgiven Haiti
For Frederick Douglass, and for Black activists across the United States, there was no place more important to global Black freedom than Haiti.
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“We Have Dared to Be Free”
Haiti truly manifested the principles of liberty, but international resistance and racism have worked for 220 years to undermine its sovereignty.
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How Haiti Destroyed Slavery and Led the Way to Freedom throughout the Atlantic World
Not the United States, Great Britain, France, or any other enslaver deserves credit for ending slavery. Atlantic abolition began with Haiti.
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How to Lose a Library
On October 31, 2023, the British Library suffered a massive cyberattack. Since then, what has been lost?
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On Not Asking “Should I Insert Myself in the Text?”
“We are obliged to acknowledge what we see and how we organize what we see.”
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Toward the Next Literary Mafia
Those excluded from the publishing industry can ultimately overwhelm its bigotry—if they all work together.
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Genre Juggernaut: Measuring “Romance”
For its scale and internal complexity alone, the literary genre of “romance” warrants more study than it has received.
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Twitter Ethics Swarm “Euphoria”
The most tweeted about show of the decade, “Euphoria” provoked viewers to gossip about its teenage characters. What did they say?
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What’s on Top of TikTok?
The videos of TikToks can easily reach billions. But because the app won’t share what’s popular, we don’t know just what the world is watching.
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What 35 Years of Data Can Tell Us about Who Will Win the National Book Award
We may never know what goes on in the rooms where literary prizes are decided, but thanks to data, we know exactly who was there.
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Our Siege Is Long
Throughout his life, poet Muin Bseiso narrated the history of Palestinian struggle and criticized Western portrayals of Gaza. Today, Bseiso’s son dodges Israeli bombs to preserve his archives.
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Publishers and Scholars, Unite!
Universities have disinvested from their presses just as much as their humanities departments and libraries. Will working together stop it?
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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.
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Weaving a Feminist Cyberlaw
Women invented cyberspace. Yet today’s internet rewards misogyny with fame, wealth, and power. Could it be otherwise?
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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?
