The Past Is Never Dead: On TV’s Backstory Problem
Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
Culture
Essays from the world of letters, art, and ideas.
Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
Dylan Adamson positions the discourses around Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” within the director’s larger body of work.
Prof. Saree Makdisi diagnoses how the university, the police, and the media have failed our students protesting on behalf of Gazan lives.
In this special episode, hosts Medaya Ocher, Kate Wolf, and Eric Newman discuss the case for and against giving up—on life, vices, dreams, creative...
Kristen Malone Poli examines the true hunger at the heart of the divorce plot.
The modern university is an efficient site for the neoliberal commoditizing of knowledge.
In an excerpt from LARB Quarterly no. 41, “Truth,” Sam Sax presents lore so uncanny, it might as well be real.
In an excerpt from LARB Quarterly no. 41, “Truth,” Peter Holslin reflects on synthesizer drones, inoffensive ambience, and his father’s affinity for...
In an excerpt from LARB Quarterly no. 41, “Truth,” Sarah Yanni accounts for what she left behind when she called off her wedding—and what she...
Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
Ryan Shea revisits Guillermo Gasió’s 1988 anthology “Borges en Japon, Japon en Borges.”
Jonathan van Harmelen reveals a lesser-known, unappreciated history of American film through the work of Asian American makers and studios.
In honor of National Talk Like Shakespeare Day, Frank Bergon writes about Shakespeare’s possible use of the Basque language.
In the first of a series, Osagie K. Obasogie explores the history and persistence of eugenics in science, medicine, and elsewhere.