Criticism

Books

Gender Wars

Two scholars excavate the origins of today’s trans backlash
Paisley Currah
Books

Terrance Hayes Won't Be Pinned Down

The virtuosic poet is still finding new ways to dazzle—and thwart—his readers
Stephanie Burt
Books

In Search of Albertine

The feminist afterlives of Proust's iconic character
Victoria Baena
Film

Parents Just Don’t Understand—and That’s OK

All of Us Strangers charts a new direction for queer cinema
Lio Wong
Books

Renaissance Women

A new book celebrates—and sells short—Shakespeare’s sisters
Catherine Nicholson
Film

The Auteur of Fatherhood

How Steven Spielberg recast American masculinity
Phillip Maciak

Browse

Criticism

Portrait of Sheila Heti
Books

The Sublime Modes of Sheila Heti

The novelist as philosopher
Noreen Khawaja
March 1, 2022
On Craft

The Art of Control

Peter Bogdanovich’s masterful restraint
Jason Guriel
February 21, 2022
Oprah Winfrey wears a tiara, standing with cast members of SNL
Television

Has Anyone Talked About How It Feels

Oprah Winfrey’s reign
Kathryn Lofton
September 20, 2021
Release of pink and white balloons.
Books

How to Continue

AIDS Elegies After Ashbery
Sam Huber
September 20, 2021
Collage with images from social media
Essays

Now Is Pretty Creepy

On Miranda July
Min Li Chan
September 20, 2021
Black and white portrait of Machado de Assis
Books

Machado de Assis’s Afterlives

The Brazilian novelist’s overlooked politics
Ratik Asokan
June 28, 2021
Blue and yellow illustration with two faces on either side of a hanging lamp
Books

No-No Man

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s nihilist masterpiece
Roy Scranton
June 28, 2021
Essays

The Subject of Pain

On Louise Bourgeois
Madhu H. Kaza
June 28, 2021
New York Times Cover reading "US Deaths near 100,000, an incalculable loss
Books

Incalculable Loss

How writing can help make sense of grief
Christopher Spaide
May 19, 2021
Corgi jumping from floating dock into water after a tennis ball with great abandon
Criticism

It Me

The trouble with memes
Marta Figlerowicz
May 19, 2021