Balancing Act: Richard Sennett’s “Building and Dwelling”
Richard Sennett’s notion of an “open city” articulates how to achieve, or at least think about, the ethical city in the 21st century....
An Elegy for Cemeteries
A book on the rise and fall of American cemeteries....
The New Primitives
Primitivism is back, not that it ever left. Ben Etherington on the historical and contemporary notions of primitivism....
The Words We Don’t Use: On Eviatar Zerubavel’s “Taken for Granted: The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable”
Dan Friedman parses “Taken for Granted: The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable” by Eviatar Zerubavel....
Cisco and Microsoft — Their Part in My Downfall; or, the Lost Ethics of Higher Ed; or, Maybe, a Sob Story
Toby Miller reflects on his unfortunate experiences in British academia....
Of Fairylands, Borders, and Charmed Circles: On Julio Capó Jr.’s “Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940”
Carlos Ulises Decena finds a welcome, nuanced portrait of queer history in Julio Capó Jr.’s “Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940.”...
Speaking of the Working Class: On Richard Hoggart
Steven Gotzler on the legacy of Richard Hoggart’s “The Uses of Literacy.”...
The Dark Side of Nice
D. Berton Emerson on Carrie Tirado Bramen’s “American Niceness: A Cultural History”...
Nomads
On Jessica Bruder's "Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century."...
Getting to the Middle of Nowhere: On Jon K. Lauck’s “From Warm Center to Ragged Edge”
Stephanie Foote navigates “From Warm Center to Ragged Edge: The Erosion of Midwestern Literary and Historical Regionalism, 1920–1965” by Jon K. Lauck....
Radical Optimization: On “Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement”
On Carl Cederström and André Spicer's "Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement" and the obsession with optimization in a neoliberal world....
A Messiah-cum-Surrogate-Dad for Gormless Dimwits: On Jordan B. Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”
Houman Barekat questions “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” by Jordan B. Peterson....
