Essay Mothers, by default May 07, 2021 A few weeks ago, I sat down with a mom I鈥檒l call Erica to talk about how she and her family have navigated the challenges of this past pandemic year. Read More
Essay The trees in your life May 07, 2021 The Earth supports about sixty thousand tree species.聽I wonder, how many of them would you come across in an average day? Read More
Essay How Hume anticipated Darwin May 06, 2021 It鈥檚 a great irony that many still believe Darwin鈥檚 theory of evolution was a sudden, startling revelation rather than itself being the fruit of the evolution of ideas. Read More
Essay 鈥榊ou try not to eat鈥�: What joblessness means for low鈥憄aid women in Pennsylvania May 04, 2021 Losing your job is difficult for anyone, but for working-class women without savings it is even harder.聽Sarah Damaske聽talked to women in low-wage jobs in Pennsylvania who struggled to afford to feed their families or pay for childcare so they could look for work. Read More
Essay Turkish Kaleidoscope musical playlist April 28, 2021 The Turkish Kaleidoscope Musical Playlist is a kaleidoscopic view of the musical backdrop from 1970s Turkey. It explores the music scene of the period, from Anatolian rock & pop to modern & traditional folk music (t眉rk眉) and arabesk. Read More
Essay 鈥淪ay it came from Billie鈥� April 26, 2021 Anyone who鈥檚 ever seen Sugar 鈥淜ane鈥� Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe)鈥攄ressed in a form-fitting black skirt, frilly overcoat, and flapper hat, carrying a fiddle in one hand and a small, boxy suitcase in the other鈥攎aking her grand entrance at the Chicago train station in Billy Wilder鈥檚 Some Like It Hot (1959) likely still has a relatively sharp memory of it intact. Read More
Essay Russia beyond Putin April 26, 2021 Weak Strongman aims to improve our great national debate about Russia by drawing on a host of fascinating new research that views Russia in comparative perspective. Read More
Essay Fracking, freedom, and the tragedy of the commons April 21, 2021 Whenever Earth Day rolls around, I think about Cindy Bower, one of the most dedicated environmentalists I know. When I first met her, in 2013, the silver-haired sexagenarian reminisced about carrying signs for the first Earth Day, many Aprils ago, in 1970. Read More
Essay The paradoxical pleasures of reading literature April 21, 2021 Reading literature is a deeply dialectical experience, one that offers a variety of paradoxical pleasures. One of the most salient of these is that in reading well we both submit to the text and resist it. Read More
Essay Crossing Medieval borders: Chaucer and Europe April 20, 2021 At the moment, almost no one is crossing borders. We aren鈥檛 allowed to travel, and many of us are separated from family, missing our international colleagues, and wishing we could go on holiday. Read More
Essay Minds wide open April 14, 2021 How to Keep an Open Mind is a selection of writings from the ancient Greek skeptic Sextus Empiricus. The title is mine, not his. Sextus鈥� skepticism is all about suspension of judgment concerning the true nature of things. Read More
Interview Chris Bail on Breaking the Social Media Prism April 14, 2021 In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. Read More
Essay To discover that which was believed lost April 13, 2021 I thought it was gone. I thought it had left me or I had left it somewhere in the street, in a cabinet, inside the grocery store, at the gas station. The arguments were depleting, had become idiotic, fantasy. Read More
Interview Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro on Minds Wide Shut March 31, 2021 Polarization may be pushing democracy to the breaking point. But few have explored the larger, interconnected forces that have set the stage for this crisis: namely, a rise in styles of thought, across a range of fields, that literary scholar Gary Saul Morson and economist Morton Schapiro call 鈥渇undamentalist.鈥� Read More
Essay The dark neuron problem, or mind reading at 90% accuracy March 30, 2021 I鈥檓 going to read your mind. Right now. Ready? Don鈥檛 get freaked out. Deep breath. Here we go鈥� Read More
