Essay On Influence: Robert Hayden in Dakar February 12, 2019 After having a conversation about a novel I鈥檝e since forgotten, my undergraduate literature professor at the University of Michigan gave me a paperback copy of Robert Hayden鈥檚 Collected Poems. Read More
Interview Ken Steiglitz on The Discrete Charm of the Machine February 12, 2019 A few short decades ago, we were informed by the smooth signals of analog television and radio; we communicated using our analog telephones; and we even computed with analog computers. Read More
Essay Ken Steiglitz: When Caruso鈥檚 Voice Became Immortal February 07, 2019 The first record to sell a million copies was Enrico Caruso鈥檚 1904 recording of 鈥淰esti la giubba.鈥� There was nothing digital, or even electrical about it; it was a strictly mechanical affair. Read More
Essay Jason Brennan: When the state is unjust, citizens may use justifiable violence January 29, 2019 If you see police choking someone to death 鈥� such as Eric Garner, the 43-year-old black horticulturalist wrestled down on the streets of New York City in 2014 鈥� you might choose to pepper-spray them and flee. You might even save an innocent life. But what ethical considerations justify such dangerous heroics? Read More
Interview Public Thinker: Issa Kohler-Hausmann on Misdemeanors and Mass Incarceration December 26, 2018 While most critics of the American criminal justice system condemn mass incarceration, fewer have turned a critical eye to practices that result in punishment other than imprisonment. Read More
Interview Jason Brennan on When All Else Fails December 11, 2018 The economist Albert O. Hirschman famously argued that citizens of democracies have only three possible responses to injustice or wrongdoing by their governments: we may leave, complain, or comply. Read More
Interview David Hu on How to Walk on Water and Climb Up Walls November 12, 2018 Insects walk on water, snakes slither, and fish swim. Animals move with astounding grace, speed, and versatility: how do they do it, and what can we learn from them? Read More
Interview Edward Burger on Making Up Your Own Mind November 09, 2018 We solve countless problems鈥攂ig and small鈥攅very day. With so much practice, why do we often have trouble making simple decisions鈥攎uch less arriving at optimal solutions to important questions? Read More
Interview William R. Newman on Newton the Alchemist November 07, 2018 When Isaac Newton鈥檚 alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby鈥檚 auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. Read More
Interview Rebecca Bedell on Moved to Tears October 05, 2018 In her new book聽Moved to Tears, Rebecca Bedell overturns received ideas about sentimental art, arguing that major American artists鈥攆rom John Trumbull and Charles Willson Peale in the eighteenth century and Asher Durand and Winslow Homer in the nineteenth to Henry Ossawa Tanner and Frank Lloyd Wright in the early twentieth鈥攑roduced what was understood in their time as sentimental art. Read More
Interview Martin Rees on On the Future October 01, 2018 Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various prospects for the future鈥攇ood and bad鈥攁re possible. Read More
Interview Jack Wertheimer on The New American Judaism September 07, 2018 American Judaism has been buffeted by massive social upheavals in recent decades. In The New American Judaism, Jack Wertheimer, a leading authority on the subject, sets out to discover how Jews of various orientations practice their religion in this radically altered landscape. Read More
Interview Marcin Wodzi艅ski on Historical Atlas of Hasidism July 10, 2018 Historical Atlas of Hasidism is the very first cartographic reference book on one of the modern era's most vibrant and important mystical movements. Read More
Interview Marcia Bjornerud on Timefulness July 10, 2018 Our everyday lives are shaped by processes that vastly predate us, and our habits will in turn have consequences that will outlast us by generations. Timefulness reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth鈥檚 deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need for a more sustainable future. Read More
