Essays Archive | Los Angeles Review of Books

All Essays

Cut Gems
Asha Schechter documents the experience of retouching precious gems, in an essay from LARB Quarterly no. 47: ‘Security.’
Asha SchechterFeb 14
- LARB Lit
- Memoir & Essay
Making a Literary Future with Artificial Intelligence
Five writers and AI researchers discuss the future of literature.
Dashiel Carrera, Katy Gero, Christian Bök, Nick Montfort, Amy CatanzanoFeb 14
- Science & Technology
- Literary Criticism
A Cyberpunk Blueprint for Hollywood’s AI Dreams
Revisiting Pat Cadigan’s 1991 novel “Synners” in light of dystopian developments in Los Angeles.
Jeff HewittFeb 12
- SF
- Film
Medical Education and the Harm of ‘Goodly Heritage’
In the 12th essay of the Legacies of Eugenics series, three researchers describe how eugenic ideas linger in the institutions and practices of contemporary healthcare.
Daniel Martinez HoSang, Marco Antonio Ramos, Alana SlavinFeb 8
Incredible Prophecies, Sick Truths
Oedipal iterations, from Sophocles to Arundhati Roy.
Ankhi MukherjeeFeb 6
- History
- Literary Criticism
Mama Don’t Take My Chromophobia Away
Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year is selling us a white fantasy.
Lida Zeitlin-WuFeb 4
- Art & Architecture
- Cultural Studies
Iranians Don’t Need to Prove Their Revolution to You
The uprising in Iran isn’t only against armed oppression; it’s also over narrative.
Sahar DelijaniFeb 1
- Politics
- History
Letter to the Editor: Jake Milgram Wien Responds to Johanna Drucker
The author of ‘Paul Landacre: California Hills, Hollywood and the World Beyond’ underscores the universality of the artist’s engraved landscapes and refutes a critic’s claims that Landacre participated in racism associated with Americans’ westward expansion.
Jake Milgram WienJan 30
- Art & Architecture
- History
Sister Acts: Why Nuns Are Showing Up Everywhere
What’s familiar and what’s new about our current fascination with the figure and the mystery of the nun, from Rosalía to self-help books.
Alexandra VeriniJan 28
When the Flames Went Out
Losing home and rebuilding, reluctantly, in the year after Los Angeles’s Eaton Fire.
Anthony Dinh TranJan 25
- Environment
- Memoir & Essay
Franny’s Papers
What was lost when Claire Douglas’s archive burned.
Satya Doyle ByockJan 23
- Memoir & Essay
- Biography & Autobiography
Opposition Party
In 2025, television offered a primer in principled dissent.
Elizabeth AlsopJan 22
- Television
- Cultural Studies
Sounds of Freedom: The Biden Years On-Screen, Part Three
The third installment of ‘The Biden Years On-Screen’ considers the cinematic fallout of cancel culture, the overruling of Roe v. Wade, and the 2022 midterm elections.
Brendan Boyle, Adam NaymanJan 21
The Kingdom in His Head
Aran Ward Sell reconsiders the legacy and complex overlapping ‘failures’ of Mervyn Peake’s final novel, ‘Titus Alone.’
Aran Ward SellJan 19
- SF
- Literary Criticism
MAGA as Fan Fiction
On America’s runaway Story Drive.
Gideon JacobsJan 18
- Politics
And I Never Looked Back
Tracing the California lineage of Charles Bukowski’s publisher, Black Sparrow Press, and its passionate founder, John Martin.
Joshua BodwellJan 16
- Biography & Autobiography
- History