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John Cage on the quiz show "Lascia o Raddoppia?"

Freedom for Sale

In the 1950s and 1960s, a new generation of American artists began to think of advertising and commercial imagery as the new avant-garde.
by Fintan O’Toole via New York Review of Books on July 1, 2021
Abstract composition by Valentijn Edgar Van Uytvanck, 1918

Still Farther South

In 1838, as the U.S. began its Exploring Expedition to the South Seas, Edgar Allan Poe published a novel that masqueraded as a travelogue.
by John Tresch via The Public Domain Review on June 16, 2021
Lady with black hair tied up in a bun

Dickinson’s Improvisations

A new edition of Emily Dickinson’s Master letters highlights what remains blazingly intense and mysterious in her work.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on June 12, 2021
Photograph of Mabel Loomis Todd with a child

Bitchy Little Spinster

Emily Dickinson and the woman in her orbit.
by Joanne O'Leary via London Review of Books on June 3, 2021

What We Want from Richard Wright

A newly restored novel tests an old dynamic between readers and the author of “Native Son.”
by Lauren Michele Jackson via The New Yorker on May 12, 2021
A collage of significant people from the time like the Beatles and Elvis.

How Americans Re-Learned to Think After World War II

In ‘The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War,’ Louis Menand explores the poetry, music, painting, dance and film that emerged during the Cold War.
by Carlos Lozada via Washington Post on April 16, 2021
Black and white photo of poet John Berryman having a beer and a conversation with a group of men

‘The Roots of Our Madness’

John Berryman's Dream Songs made explicit the racialization of American poetry's turn—and the whiteness of lyric tradition.
by Kamran Javadizadeh via New York Review of Books on April 8, 2021
Joe Biden surrounded by words emanating from a book.

Can America’s Problems Be Fixed By A President Who Loves Jon Meacham?

How a pop historian shaped the soul of Biden’s presidency.
by Kara Voght via Mother Jones on April 2, 2021
Vincent Price.

The Strange Undeath of Middlebrow

Everything that was once considered lowbrow is now triumphant.
by Phil Christman via The Hedgehog Review on March 25, 2021
Headshot of William Faulkner

‘A Land Where the Dead Past Walks’

Faulkner’s chroniclers have to reconcile the novelist’s often repellent political positions with the extraordinary meditations on race, violence, and cruelty in his fiction.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on December 20, 2020
partner

Quoting Irish Poetry, Joe Biden is Making Hope and History Rhyme

Explaining Joe Biden’s fondness for quoting Irish poets.
by Cóilín Parsons via Made By History on November 1, 2020
An image of William Faulkner and author André Malroux.

Faulkner Couldn’t Overcome Racism, But He Never Ignored It

That’s why the privileged White novelist’s work is still worth reading, Michael Gorra argues.
by Chandra Manning via Washington Post on October 2, 2020
Buildings in the forest.

Faulkner as Futurist

For Faulkner, all of time existed as a moment, during which all could be changed: past, present, and future.
by Carl Rollyson via The Hedgehog Review on September 1, 2020
William Faulkner writes at a typewriter in front of a messy bookshelf, not looking at the camera.

What to Do About William Faulkner

A white man of the Jim Crow South, he couldn’t escape the burden of race, yet derived creative force from it.
by Drew Gilpin Faust via The Atlantic on August 8, 2020
A printed advertisement for "The Bookman" depicting a fish reacting to "The Bookman" on a hook.

The Power of Flawed Lists

How "The Bookman" invented the best seller.
by Elizabeth Della Zazzera via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 27, 2020

The Forever War Over War Literature

A post-9/11 veteran novelist explores a post-Vietnam literary soiree gone bad, and finds timeless lessons about a contentious and still-evolving genre.
by Matt Gallagher via The New Republic on July 17, 2020
Illustration taken from The Great Gatsby, The Graphic Novel

Greil Marcus Takes a Deep Dive Into "the Stubborn Myth of The Great Gatsby"

An insightful exploration of the ways America has read ‘the Great American Novel.’
by Allen Barra via The National Book Review on July 17, 2020
Drawing of two angels flying above Longfellow

What Is There to Love About Longfellow?

He was the most revered poet of his day. It’s worth trying to figure out why.
by James Marcus via The New Yorker on June 1, 2020
A hospital filled with patients during the influenza pandemic of 1918

How Pandemics Seep into Literature

The literature that arose from the influenza pandemic speaks to our current moment in profound ways, offering connections in the exact realms where art excels.
by Elizabeth Outka via The Paris Review on April 8, 2020
Rebecca West.

Whittaker Chambers Through the Eyes of Rebecca West

West understood more clearly than anyone the allure of Communism for educated Westerners.
by Peter Baehr via National Review on April 2, 2020
Photographs of Lilian Smith and Frank Yerby.

Frank Yerby and Lillian Smith: Challenging the Myths of Whiteness

Both Southerners. Both all but forgotten. Both, in their own ways, questioned the social constructions of race and white supremacy in their writings.
by Matthew Teutsch via The Bitter Southerner on January 9, 2020

The Asian-American Canon Breakers

Proudly embracing their role as outsiders, a group of writer-activists set out to create a cultural identity—and a literature—of their own.
by Hua Hsu via The New Yorker on January 6, 2020

To Be Mary MacLane

In the early twentieth century, Mary MacLane’s genre-defying books earned the scorn of critics and the adoration of readers across the nation.
by Penelope Rosemont via The Paris Review on December 5, 2019

“Ulysses” on Trial

It was a setup: a stratagem worthy of wily Ulysses himself.
by Michael Chabon via New York Review of Books on September 13, 2019

The Literal (and Figurative) Whiteness of Moby Dick

For Herman Melville, the color white could be horrifyingly bleak.
by Gabrielle Bellot via Literary Hub on August 1, 2019

Herman Melville at Home

The novelist drew on far-flung voyages to create his masterpiece. But he could finish it only at his beloved Berkshire farm.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on July 22, 2019

A Universe of One’s Own

Only in the science fiction genre can one compare an alien to a woman.
by Nicole Rudick via New York Review of Books on July 8, 2019

Triumph and Disaster: The Tragic Hubris of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If—’

The long and complicated life of Kipling's famous poem.
by Christopher Benfey via New York Review of Books on July 3, 2019
Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling in America

What happened to the great defender of Empire when he settled in the States?
by Charles McGrath via The New Yorker on July 1, 2019
Glowing white "No" against a red background.

“Perhaps We’re Being Dense.” Rejection Letters Sent to Famous Writers

Some kind, some weird, some unbelievably harsh.
by Emily Temple via Literary Hub on June 19, 2019
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