Quoting the World

There may be no unifying style in Eugène Atget’s photographs—only an uncanny realism that still arrests viewers a century after his death.

May 28, 2026 issue

Inflatable Life

Paul Chan’s eerily animated sculptures pose the question of who gets to identify humanity in others.

May 14, 2026 issue

Visions of Depravity

Ceija Stojka, who survived the Romani Holocaust, came to painting later in life to preserve the horrors of her childhood.

May 14, 2026 issue

The Second ‘Redemption’

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais deals a fatal blow to the Voting Rights Act, using reasoning that Congress rejected more than forty years ago. 

May 4, 2026

After El-Fasher

In North Darfur’s displacement camps, people look for what might help them go on living, or escape once again.

May 3, 2026

His Moo Was Refined

What can explain The Story of Ferdinand’s remarkable appeal in its own moment—and its enduring popularity today?

May 2, 2026

My Classroom Life

The best way to learn something is to teach it.

May 1, 2026

Ever New

In Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s music, the present moment is an astonishing, improbable gift.

April 30, 2026

Vengeance Is Theirs

In Shakespeare’s most infamous play, a disordered Roman state becomes the backdrop for nihilism, bloodshed, and scrambled moral hierarchies. 

April 26, 2026

We Goofed

A new exhibition celebrates the humble poetry of errata. 

April 25, 2026

Waiting for Day Zero

In Los Angeles, home to the largest population of Iranians outside Iran, supporters of the exiled crown prince insist that their moment has come.

April 22, 2026

A Clearing of the Ground

Hampshire College, 1970–2026

April 19, 2026

Ingrid D. Rowland on Art History, Raphael, and Disegno

Episode 13 of Private Life

May 13, 2026

Maya Lin Reads ‘Ghosts in the House’

Episode 12 of Private Life

April 29, 2026

Martin Filler on Writing, Frank Gehry, and the Dramatic World of Architecture

Episode 11 of Private Life

April 22, 2026

Of Fire and Rain

It was sometime in the afternoon, checking my phone for news from home, that I saw the flames.

March 14, 2026

Longing for My Tehran

On the Israeli news, I watch as the country whose citizenship I hold devastates the one where I was born.

March 14, 2026

Iran Transformed

To understand the regime the US now seeks to obliterate, we have to return to the political and economic convulsions that produced last January’s uprising.

March 8, 2026

The Gaza Doctrine

Over the course of two years, Israeli forces systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip’s health system. Their attacks in Iran and Lebanon follow a disturbingly similar pattern.

March 22, 2026

A King’s Madness

“In the early summer of 1788, George III was gently but steadily going off his head.”

March 25, 1965 issue

Postscript to Nixon

“All through the summer, right up to his resignation and for weeks after it, if Nixon remained a puzzle or an unknown quantity to his compatriots, it was not for lack of evidence against him but rather because of the wealth of it.”

October 17, 1974 issue

Year One: The Mad King

Less than a year into his presidency, we hear the same question again and again: What has to happen for Republicans to break with their Mad King?

November 10, 2017

Is Trump Certifiable?

The misuse of power is not a free-standing psychiatric category, though power seems to exacerbate a whole range of existing “craziness,” whether it is that of movie moguls or politicians.

January 8, 2018

To Err Is Poetic

The poetry canon is dotted with mistakes large and small; why do some critics seem attached to reading these errors as intentional?

February 11, 2021 issue

Proofreading the President

Mocking the president’s twisting circumlocutions on Twitter is cold consolation—ask anyone who bought a “Bushisms” calendar the January before the United States invaded Iraq.

October 8, 2019

The Scandal of ‘Ulysses’

“Ulysses: The Corrected Text is not a purified text, but a different version from what Joyce conceived, authorized, and saw into print.”

June 30, 1988 issue

On Translating Pushkin Pounding the Clavichord

An infelicitous translation of Eugene Onegin from a pitiless and irresponsible paraphrast bristles with crippled clichés and mongrel idioms, an inadequate knowledge of English and wobbly Russian.

April 30, 1964 issue

Mystery Brain

“I tend to be interested in subjects that confound me or strike me as enticingly improbable—I guess you could call them mysteries.”

May 2, 2026

After the Mystics

“There’s nothing quite like the captivating feeling of coming upon, say, a faded relief on a stone wall in some unassuming place, and finding that the work is so much better than it has to be, has a mastery of skill or an originality of thought beyond its purpose.”

April 18, 2026

A Widening Gulf

“It would be a mistake to treat the Gulf as politically homogeneous. The war has clearly shown the weight of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but it has not eliminated the different calculations of other Gulf states.”

April 11, 2026

Novels of the Future

“To ask what literature has been doing all this time, as atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising to ever more alarming levels, is to ask about the basic task facing writers.”

April 4, 2026

Gaza: The Threat of Partition

By putting the possibility of reconstruction out of reach for many Palestinians in Gaza, the current UN-endorsed “peace plan” may make it impossible for them to remain. 

November 23, 2025

What ‘Day After’ for Gaza?

The most influential plans for rebuilding Gaza start from the premise that Palestinians have no right to determine their future.

October 25, 2025

‘A Life That Is Not a Life’

My friend Awdah Hathaleen devoted himself to ending Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. His killing demonstrates just how little distance remains between settlers and the state.

September 5, 2025

‘Infinite License’

The memory of the Holocaust has, perversely, been enlisted to justify both the eradication of Gaza and the extraordinary silence with which that violence has been met.

April 24, 2025 issue