This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
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Posts Tagged: Jia Tolentino
Notable NYC: 3/31–4/6
Literary events and readings in and around New York City this week!
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Lady Killers and Our Obsession with Murder: Talking with Tori Telfer
Tori Telfer discusses her first book Lady Killers and the fragile “social saran wrap” that keeps us all from killing each other.
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Erasing the Girl: Why Don’t We Trust Women to Tell Their Stories of Disordered Eating?
I didn’t want to criticize her, or demand explanations from her. I just wanted to hear her speak.
...moreNext Letter in the Mail: Jia Tolentino
Our next Letter in the Mail comes from Jia Tolentino! Jia writes about a letter she received from a stranger in response to a piece she wrote, why she has yet to respond, why feeling like she’s not enough can be a useful feeling, and that maybe she’s always wanted to write an advice column. To make sure this thoughtful, handwritten letter […]
...moreNotable NYC: 4/8–4/14
Saturday 4/8: Chris Hayes presents A Colony in a Nation in conversation with Wesley Lowery. St. Joseph’s College, 6 p.m, $30. Claudia Rankine and Garnette Cadogan give the keynote address at the Focus Festival running on Saturday and Sunday. Bard Graduate Center Gallery, 7 p.m., $20. Julia Loktev and Sukhdev Sandhu join the Segue series. Zinc […]
...moreNotable NYC: 3/18–3/24
Saturday 3/18: Lisa Robertson and Uljana Wolf join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Sunday 3/19: Michelle Hogmire, Edward Barkin, Claudia Summers, and Matt Basillere celebrate contributions to KGB Bar Lit. KGB Bar, 7 p.m., free. Ariel Francisco, Sally Wen Mao, Jayson P. Smith, Kymani M. Jade, Taylor Lannamann, Glynn Pogue, Halley Furlong-Mitchell, […]
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Why Is It Always up to the Women?
That’s the real tangle of women’s labor; it’s too deeply ingrained to the way our lives work for us to properly strike from it.
...moreNotable NYC: 2/18–2/24
Saturday 2/18: Ryan Dobran and Wendy Letterman join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Kristen Gallagher and Ed Steck celebrate new books from Skeleton Man Press. The Glove, 6 p.m., free. Sunday 2/19: Elizabeth Hall and Melissa Buzzeo read poetry. Berl’s Poetry Shop, 6:30 p.m., free. Monday 2/20: Not My President’s Day march. Columbus […]
...moreWhat Elena Ferrante and Kim Kardashian Have in Common
While the outing of Elena Ferrante and the robbing of Kim Kardashian were not inherently gendered acts, the responses to them certainly have been. In light of these two seemingly divergent issues, the New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino meditates on the framing of female ambition in the media, and what happens “when women signify too much”: …the […]
...moreGoodbye Important, Inappropriate Literary Man
Jezebel’s Jia Tolentino discusses “the end of the era of the important, inappropriate literary man” in context of the sexual abuse allegations against Iowa Workshop visiting professor Thomas Sayer Ellis. She posits that social media is allowing victims more visibility and power as they speak out against their abusers who have previously been protected by […]
...moreMaking Space
Books by white dudes are so inescapable that some readers have taken to (temporarily) swearing off their work. Jezebel’s Jia Tolentino considers whether those efforts are misguided: We know that white male writers take up too much literary attention; the solution is not necessarily jamming everyone else into a bottle of social justice cough syrup, standing […]
...moreThe Real Problem with Campus Rape
Fraternities do not have a monopoly on rapists: not at UVA, not at any frat, not even the deep Southern ones where upwards of 100 guys live in the house. (The plumbing; one shudders.) But: what the fraternity system does collect together is a group of male teenagers who enter their organization through rites of […]
...moreBut What About Me?
There’s a certain heuristic online these days that stems from a somewhat impossible idea that every narrated experience should contain, account for, and address every other one out there. There is no breed of reaction that deadens me more, for example, than, ‘Great, but I wish this had been written from my perspective.’ And social […]
...moreLife in a Yurt
In 2009, Molly Caro May decided to move to Montana with her husband. They settled into a handmade yurt in which the couple has now lived for more than five years. May collected her experiences living in the mountains in a new memoir, The Map of Enough: One Woman’s Search for Place. Over at the […]
...more“I Got My Birth Chart Read”
When asked about her decision to relocate to Bangkok, Jessica Mack, a women’s rights consultant hailing from the U.S.A. says, “In a nutshell, I’m in Bangkok because my life sort of fell apart…” After the end of a 7-year relationship, moving out of her apartment, and a bike accident, Mack took a step back from […]
...moreA Spooktacular Halloween Reading List
It’s Halloween, and the Hairpin’s Jia Tolentino has put together a frightfully good list of spooky books to read by the light of the jack-o-lantern. This list has it all: “futurist nightmare, teenage romance with a Bataille-esque hint of sexual horror, Victorian inventors, Escherian funhouses, small-town disappearances and mysteries”—and that’s just the first book. What […]
...moreMaking Sense of the MFA Debate
We’re all familiar with the great MFA debate: Can an MFA program teach you how to write? Is it just a Ponzi scheme? Why should you enroll in one, or not? Jia Tolentino, a University of Michigan MFA student, zooms out and takes a less het-up look at both sides of the argument. It’s super […]
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