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The Story Wars

The conflict between Red and Blue America is a clash of national mythologies
Richard Slotkin

The Politics of Anger

Putin and the psychology of rage
Josh Cohen


Is This Tyranny?

How losing the right to vote changed my understanding of America
Feisal G. Mohamed

The Wondrous Banality of Democracy

Counting the votes in one Pennsylvania county during the 2020 presidential election
John Fabian Witt

Stealing the Show

Why conservatives killed America’s federally funded theater
Charlie Tyson

The “singularity” of criticism stems from the singularity of literature, a unique corner of any world.

Jonathan Kramnick The Living Practice of Criticism

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Poetically Speaking

A new book makes the case for bewilderment as a critical virtue
Brian Dillon

A Reviewer’s Life

The material constraints of writing criticism today
Christine Smallwood

The Critic as Friend

The challenge of reading generously
Merve Emre

Critical Navel-Gazing

If criticism is in crisis, it’s not the critic’s problem
Namwali Serpell

Has something been lost over the past twenty years—or does criticism still thrive? What do we do when we talk about art? Have the ways we evaluate books changed? And perhaps most important of all: What do we need from criticism?

Meghan O'Rourke An Introduction to Our Criticism Issue

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Bystander

Jamel Brinkley

In Medias Res

Percival Everett

Winners

Merritt Tierce

Rosaura at Dawn

Daniel Saldaña París
translated by Christina MacSweeney

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Portfolio

Jess Atieno

Merging photographs and textiles

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The Rhapsodic Critic

A response to Jonathan Kramnick’s Criticism and Truth
Elaine Scarry

When the Movies Mattered

Siskel and Ebert and the heyday of popular movie criticism
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The power of encampment as a form of protest
Feisal G. Mohamed