The Mandates of Magic: On Timeka N. Tounsel’s “Branding Black Womanhood”
What are the mandates of Black Girl Magic? Leigh-Michil George looks at the history of “Essence” magazine and the complicated personal politics of...
What are the mandates of Black Girl Magic? Leigh-Michil George looks at the history of “Essence” magazine and the complicated personal politics of...
Leigh-Michil GeorgeNov 10, 2022
Arjun Appadurai scans Alexander R. Galloway’s “Uncomputable: Play and Politics in the Long Digital Age.”
Arjun AppaduraiSep 18, 2022
David Lipset reviews Lisa Uperesa’s anthropological study “Gridiron Capital: How American Football Became a Samoan Game.”
David LipsetSep 11, 2022
Nile Green discovers Ahmed El Shamsy’s “Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition.”
Nile GreenAug 21, 2022
Sarah Wasserman questions the defining boundaries and problematic categorizations carried by our culture's treatment of the label "millennial."
Sarah WassermanAug 18, 2022
Novelist Miguel Syjuco on the subversive concept of baduy in Philippine culture.
Miguel SyjucoAug 17, 2022
Najee Olya reviews Sarah Derbew’s “Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity.”
Najee OlyaAug 8, 2022
Aaron Peck reviews Daniel Levin Becker’s “What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language.”
Aaron PeckAug 8, 2022
A panel at the 2022 LA Times Festival of Books addressed the past and future of Los Angeles’s Latinx neighborhoods.
Natalia Molina, Juan De Lara, George J. Sánchez, Pierrette Hondagneu-SoteloAug 5, 2022
Richard Wolin excavates the roots of the right-wing conspiracy theory that liberal elites are trying to “replace” white Americans with nonwhites.
Richard WolinAug 4, 2022
Social media has radically transformed pregnancy announcements, and our entire private lives.
Lauren Carroll HarrisMay 12, 2022
Elizabeth DeWolf interviews mathematician Cathy O’Neil about her latest book on the shame industrial complex.
Elizabeth DeWolfApr 26, 2022
The postmodernists had it right: all culture is the product of capitalism.
GD DessApr 8, 2022
What can dictionaries tell us about cultural crises and the politics of nationality?
Ilan Stavans, Margaret BoyleMar 30, 2022
Why do some of us embrace — even pursue — painful experiences?
Rhoda FengMar 10, 2022
The innate wildness of cats makes them rich fodder for internet memes.
Teow Lim GohJan 31, 2022
Natan M. Meir reviews the recently published book by Jonathan Freedman, “The Jewish Decadence: Jews and the Aesthetics of Modernity.”
Natan M. MeirJan 25, 2022
Tanner’s new book examines how nostalgia circulates in our culture both innocuously and destructively.
Emmalea RussoDec 29, 2021
A lucid and engaging cultural history of censorship debates in Britain from 1857 to 1979.
Thomas J. SojkaDec 27, 2021
Summer Kim Lee reviews “The Loneliest Americans,” the new book by Jay Caspian Kang.
Summer Kim LeeDec 7, 2021
A transcript of the panel discussion “Where’s ‘the Discourse’?” – a conversation in the Semipublic Intellectual Sessions, which took place on October...
Lili Loofbourow, Daphne A. Brooks, Jesse McCarthy, Sarah Marshall, Lexis-Olivier RayDec 3, 2021
Words and their power are at the heart of Amanda Montell’s new book.
Olivia GerberNov 26, 2021
The allure of mixed-sex dancing in Jewish literature and contemporary popular culture.
Sonia GollanceOct 17, 2021
LARB presents an excerpt from “Chicago Avant-Garde: Five Women Ahead of Their Time.”
Liesl OlsonOct 10, 2021