Magnus Hirschfeld’s Forgotten Revolution Magnus Hirschfeld’s Forgotten Revolution
The Weimar physician advocated for a more fluid understanding of sexuality and gender—a pioneering idea that was erased by the rise of Nazism.
Aug 5, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Lizzie Tribone
The Story of America Can Be Found on the Banks of the Rio Grande The Story of America Can Be Found on the Banks of the Rio Grande
Richard Parker’s love letter to El Paso, "The Crossing", argues that the Texas city can illustrate the best and the worst of the nation’s history.
Aug 4, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Kyle Paoletta
Essex Hemphill’s Poetry of Belonging Essex Hemphill’s Poetry of Belonging
He was an artist and activist who found in his verse a tool for both community and agitprop.
Jul 30, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Felsenthal
Is Pitching a Novel All That Different From “Shark Tank”? Is Pitching a Novel All That Different From “Shark Tank”?
Alex Higley’s "True Failure", which dramatizes one man’s dream to pitch his business idea on reality TV, slyly compares this bathetic task to publishing literary fiction.
Jul 29, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Ben Sandman
Before Sebald Was Great Before Sebald Was Great
By looking at his early work, we can better understand who the German writer was beyond his persona as the melancholy intellectual and serious man of letters.
Jul 28, 2025 / Books & the Arts / David Schurman Wallace
The Argentine Grandmothers Who Resisted the Junta The Argentine Grandmothers Who Resisted the Junta
Haley Cohen Gilliland’s "A Flower Traveled in My Blood" looks at the efforts of a human rights group to find the children and grandchildren who were disappeared by a dictatorship.
Jul 24, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Jacob Sugarman
Want to Understand Global Inequality? Visit the Dump. Want to Understand Global Inequality? Visit the Dump.
Alexander Clapp’s "Waste Wars", a world-spanning inquiry into the politics of garbage, makes a case that everything that is wrong with capitalism is embodied in our trash.
Jul 23, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Carol Schaeffer
The Enduring Lessons of Wages for Housework The Enduring Lessons of Wages for Housework
Emily Callaci’s history of the international feminist movement examines the influence of their intellectual and political victories.
Jul 22, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Maia Silber
The Impish Modernism of Michael Clune The Impish Modernism of Michael Clune
In "Pan", his debut novel, he makes the unruly mind of a teenager the stuff of high art.
Jul 21, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Adam Wilson
The Life and Times of Talking Heads The Life and Times of Talking Heads
How influential was the New Wave band?
Jul 17, 2025 / Books & the Arts / David Hajdu