Criticism

How Mike Kelley Became Himself

The artist’s search for subcultural America
Jonathan Griffin
Books

The Polycrisis

Why can’t we stop talking about nonmonogamy?
Brandy Jensen

Is Blasphemy Illiberal?

Salman Rushdie’s thoroughly modern controversies
Len Gutkin

Poetically Speaking

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

Writing in Pictures

Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature
Chris Ware

Chantal Akerman’s Elusive Interiors

What the filmmaker’s portrayal of women reveals—and withholds
Emily LaBarge

Browse

Criticism

Revisiting Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance

The novel that introduced a new post-Stonewall gay sensibility
Garth Greenwell
December 4, 2023

Streaming the Polycrisis

Why have TV miniseries about catastrophe become all the rage?
Adam Fales
November 28, 2023

The Legacy of Sonic Youth

How the band reached beyond music to define a scene
Michael Azerrad
November 8, 2023

Lou Reed Didn’t Want to Be King

A new biography tries to pin the rocker down
Hannah Gold
October 16, 2023

10 Ways Ms., Sassy, and Jezebel Changed Your Life!

How contradiction drove fifty years of feminist media
Maggie Doherty
September 18, 2023

How Emily Wilson Reimagined Homer

Her boldly innovative translation of the Iliad is an epic for our time
Emily Greenwood
September 18, 2023

The Choice Plot

Why are so many new novels obsessed with whether–and how–to have children?
Sanjena Sathian
September 18, 2023

Service or Servitude?

The Bear and The Menu give us very different views of capitalism
Daniel W. Drezner
September 12, 2023

Ordinary Allurements

Christina Sharpe’s reading lessons
Elleza Kelley
June 12, 2023

The Consolations of Failure

Two new books look at what failing can—and cannot—teach us
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
June 12, 2023