Literary Criticism

"Writing only leads to more writing." — Colette

White Writers’ Omission of Race: Jess Row’s “White Flights: Race Fiction, and The American Imagination”
"White Flights" is a faultlessly argued collection of essays about how whiteness dominates the American literary imagination.
Katharine ColdironSep 11, 2019
- Cultural Studies
- Literary Criticism
“I’m Not the Only One”: On Jess Row’s “White Flights”
Sarah Haas reviews Jess Row's latest book, "White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination."
Sarah HaasSep 11, 2019
- Cultural Studies
- Literary Criticism
Larger and More Befuddling Questions: On Jane Tompkins’s “Reading Through the Night”
Dylan Brown reads through “Reading Through the Night” by literary critic Jane Tompkins.
Dylan BrownSep 1, 2019
- Literary Criticism
- Memoir & Essay
Literary Economy: On “The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics”
John Macintosh reviews "The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics," edited by Michelle Chihara and Matt Seybold.
John MacintoshAug 26, 2019
- Economics and Finance
- Literary Criticism
Three Times
Jessica Riskin, Amit Yahav, and Christina Lupton teach us that we use time and reading to make sense of ourselves to ourselves and others.
Tita ChicoJul 23, 2019
Reading Ruskin in Cataclysmic Times
Alexandra Milsom reviews Suzanne Fagence Cooper’s “To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters.”
Alexandra L. MilsomJul 23, 2019
Self-Flagellation in Pursuit of Atonement
Steve Almond’s ambivalent love letter to John Williams’s novel “Stoner.”
J. C. HallmanJul 19, 2019
- Literary Criticism
Text and Texture
Great works of fiction have a consistency, a firmness and density that can be touched.
Lynne Sharon SchwartzJul 7, 2019
- Literary Criticism
My Bookish Upbringing
In "Between Pen and Pixel," Aaron Kashtan argues that comics are the medium that offers the most insights about the present and the future of the book.
Vincent HaddadJul 6, 2019
Chaucer’s Traces
Marion Turner's "Chaucer: A European Life" depicts the poet’s life in vivid detail, yet it tries too hard to accommodate Chaucer to our own century.
Joe StadolnikJun 26, 2019
- Biography & Autobiography
- Literary Criticism
Friends Like These: On Thoreau and Emerson
Daegan Miller reviews Jeffrey S. Cramer’s new book about the friendship of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Daegan MillerJun 24, 2019
Tangled Up in Blue Poetics: Timothy Hampton Reads a Bob Dylan for the Ages
Rob Wilson considers “Bob Dylan’s Poetics: How the Songs Work” by Timothy Hampton
Rob WilsonMay 24, 2019