Menu
Idea

literary criticism

199
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 181–199 of 199 results. Go to first page
A crowd with communist and unemployment relief signs listens to a woman making a speech.

What Endures of the Romance of American Communism

Many of the Communists who felt destined for a life of radicalism experienced their lives as irradiated by a kind of expressiveness that made them feel centered.
by Vivian Gornick via New York Review of Books on April 3, 2020
Sign noting that spitting spreads the Spanish flu.

Trapped on a Ship During a Pandemic

“Either they’ve got no conscience, or they’re not awake to the gravity of the situation.”
by Willa Cather via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 31, 2020

The Seminal Novel About the 1918 Flu Pandemic Was Written by a Texan

Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘Pale Horse, Pale Rider’ tells the tale of a pandemic she barely survived.
by Michael Agresta via Texas Monthly on March 25, 2020
Photo of Carson McCullers

The Closeting of Carson McCullers

Through her relationships with other women, one can trace the evidence of McCullers’s becoming, as a woman, as a lesbian, and as a writer.
by Jenn Shapland via The Paris Review on February 3, 2020
The Nancy Drew logo, a silhouette of a woman looking through a detective glass

Oh Nancy, Nancy!

The mysterious appeal of my first detective.
by Sam Leith via The Spectator on February 1, 2020
Painting of a Black family on a horse escaping slavery.

‘A Doubtful Freedom’

Andrew Delbanco's new book positions the debate over fugitive slaves as a central factor in the nation's slide toward disunion.
by David W. Blight via New York Review of Books on January 14, 2020

What Does Gender Have to Do with the Desert?

"Everything, of course."
by Sarah Swedberg via Nursing Clio on April 11, 2019
Soldiers burning books.

How We Roasted Donald Duck, Disney's Agent of Imperialism

Why a 47-year old anti-colonialist critique by Chilean dissidents may be newly relevant in the Trump era.
by Ariel Dorfman via The Guardian on October 5, 2018

Rereading Childhood Books Teaches Adults About Themselves

Whether they delight or disappoint, old books provide touchstones for tracking personal growth.
by Emma Court via The Atlantic on July 27, 2018

The Right Way to Remember Rachel Carson

She did not write her most famous work until late in life. Until then, she thought of herself as a poet of the sea.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on March 19, 2018

Bohemian Tragedy

The rise, fall, and afterlife of George Sterling’s California arts colony.
by Joy Lanzendorfer via Poetry Foundation on February 26, 2018

The Short, Sad Story of Stanwix Melville

Piecing back together the forgotten history of Herman Melville's second son.
by Christopher Benfey via New York Review of Books on October 30, 2017
Klansman in white hoods and robes.

William Bradford Huie’s “The Klansman” @50

With Donald Trump bringing the Ku Klux Klan back into the spotlight, we must return to William Bradford Huie's 1967 novel.
by Riché Richardson via Public Books on September 12, 2017
Illustrated children reaching for books by statue of Anne Carroll Moore

The Librarian Who Changed Children’s Literature Forever

They called her ACM, but never, ever, to her face.
by Laura J. Miller via Slate on August 5, 2016
Edgar Allan Poe

On Edgar Allan Poe

Crypts, entombments, physical morbidity: these nightmares are prominent in Poe’s tales, a fictional world in which the word that recurs most crucially is horror.
by Marilynne Robinson via New York Review of Books on January 5, 2015
Pearl Curran

Ghostwriter and Ghost: The Strange Case of Pearl Curran & Patience Worth

In early 20th-century St. Louis, Pearl Curran claimed to have conjured a long-dead New England Puritan named Patience Worth through a Ouija board.
by Ed Simon via The Public Domain Review on September 17, 2014
Portrait of Ambrose Bierce with skull

One of America's Best

Ambrose Bierce deviated from the refined eeriness of English-style ghost stories for his haunting descriptions of fateful coincidence and horrific revelation.
by Michael Dirda via New York Review of Books on May 10, 2012
Drawings of George Washington

His Highness

George Washington scales new heights.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on September 20, 2010

A Look Inside James Baldwin’s 1,884 Page FBI File

Memos on "aliases," sexuality, and The Blood Counters.
by William J. Maxwell via Literary Hub on July 8, 1964

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History