World
Helen Oyeyemi’s Novel of Cognitive Dissonance
Few fantasies are harder to wipe away than the romance of a clean slate. Every January, when we’re twitchy with regret and self-loathing, advertisers blare, “New Year, new you,”...
Did Racial Capitalism Set the Bronx on Fire?
Sometimes people say exactly the right thing. Other times, they don’t, and we just pretend that they did. When eighteenth-century Parisians clamored for bread, did Marie Antoinette respond, “Let...
A Season of Unease at the Edinburgh Festival
For a few weeks each August, the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe fill every theatre, student center, lecture hall, and pub basement in the Scottish capital...
The Fiery Mania of Dijon’s “Baby”
Dijon Duenas has one of those voices that’s meant for televised singing competitions and gospel choirs, swooning ballads and achy slow jams. It preens and jilts, wails and whimpers,...
“Highest 2 Lowest” Marks a Conservative Pivot for Spike Lee
It’s fascinating when filmmakers make drastic late-career shifts, as Martin Scorsese did with “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Francis Ford Coppola recently did with “Megalopolis.” Now it’s Spike...
Fall Culture Preview
Few have captured infatuation like Schubert, three of whose lovelorn song cycles—“Die Schöne Müllerin,” “Winterreise,” and “Schwanengesang”—are performed in a single day, by the Brooklyn Art Song Society (Roulette;...
“My Undesirable Friends: Part I” Is a Staggering Portrait of Russian Journalists in Dissent
Because the Russian alphabet has no direct equivalent of the letter “H,” speakers often substitute a “G” sound; “Harry Potter” thus becomes “Garry Potter.” We’re reminded of this funny...
Roman Polanski’s Self-Centered “An Officer and a Spy”
The prime parallel between the movie “An Officer and a Spy” and the life of its director, Roman Polanski, is obvious but inexact. The film, whose original French title...
“An Open Heart,” by Jamil Jan Kochai
This is the seventh story in this summer’s online Flash Fiction series. Read the entire series, and our Flash Fiction from previous years, here.They cut open my father’s chest...
Dan-el Padilla Peralta on Learning How to Combat Loss
When the Princeton classicist Dan-el Padilla Peralta was going up for a promotion to full professor, in early 2023, it occurred to him that one of the central preoccupations...
