essays
On Jennine Capó Crucet’s Course in Continuing Education, ‘My Time Among the Whites’
In her memoir My Time Among the Whites, Jennine Capó Crucet demonstrates that making your home among strangers is harder than it seems.
Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror’ Is a Studied Index of Contemporary Ills
Jia Tolentino's first collection of essays, Trick Mirror, expertly navigates how the byproducts of capitalism and the Internet permeate culture, values, politics, and the daily lives of people worldwide.
Jess Row’s ‘White Flights’ Examines Avoidant Rituals of Race in American Literature
"White flights" for Jess Row denotes the "postures of avoidance and denial" about whiteness — as a privilege, a cultural norm, and a burden — adopted by white authors, academics, and critics.
Robert Christgau, Collected: ‘Book Reports’
The columns, reviews, and essays covering the intersections of musical narratives, sociology, history, and economics in Book Reports, from the Dean of American Rock Critics, is much more than just the man on the tunes.
Eula Biss’s Reissued ‘Notes from No Man’s Land’ Resonates
Eula Biss's essay collection remains compelling not only for its elegant prose that melds politics and personal essay but because its subject matter may be even more relevant today.
Saving Acid Communism: The Essential Leftist Critic Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher’s posthumous k-punk showcases the depth of his critiques, insight he brought to the humanities, and a glimpse into where he was going with the unfinished work, Acid Communism.
Oscar Wilde: ‘In Praise of Disobedience’
Being humble and peaceable are not virtues, according to Oscar Wilde, as seen in his collection of essays, In Praise of Disobedience, disobedience and rebelliousness against inequality and tyranny are much more valuable to humankind.
Owls, Aliens, and Others
Essayist Brian Phillips is no staunch empiricist, nor does he want to shatter delusions or expose machinations. In Impossible Owls, he is content to remain in a wide-eyed and owl-ier place.
The Problem with Joseph Epstein’s Essays on Culture
One can't help but wonder what Epstein feels at churning out fuel for those reactionaries most determined to wreck "the best that has been thought and said" in liberal culture.
‘We’re Still at War’: Illustrated Stories Testifying to Atrocities, Survival, and the Human Condition
Post Bellum's publishing mission is not simply to isolate testimony from those who suffered but to also shed light on those who worked against the smothering constraints of fascism and totalitarianism.
Alice Bolin’s ‘Dead Girls’ Fails to Closely Exam the Bodies
Throughout Dead Girls, Bolin is too eager to jam pack chapters with popular cultural references rather than fully deconstructing the subjects.