The Nation
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Finding Kafka
Was Franz Kafka really a tortured neurotic writer? A new biography shows a different side of the surreal German writer: He loved beer and slapstick. He undertook a fitness regime popularized by a Danish exercise guru. He tried to cheat on…
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Fundamentally Unfamiliar
At The Nation, Ava Kofman talks about Clarice Lispector and her continual mystique as a writer who refuted such nonsense as plot, rebuked literature from Borges to Joyce, and still captured the literary world with a fierce grip and claws:…
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The Rumpus Interview with Melissa Gira Grant
Melissa Gira Grant talks sex workers’ rights, labor politics, the novelty of women’s sexuality, and her book, Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work.
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Big Data is the Key
Over at The Nation, Moira Weigel gives a thought-provoking perspective on digital humanities, and identifies some of the field’s intellectual precursors. The idea that big data holds the key to unlocking mysteries of literature and history is the logical extension…
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Librarians and the Patriot Act
Librarians have long been on the forefront of information management; in the digital age, they are more invested than ever in protecting the free flow of information to the public, and protecting it from the overreaches of government prying. In…
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Words for Words Without Music
Philip Glass has written a memoir. Philip Glass has written a memoir. The composer Philip Glass has written a memoir. Philip Glass has written a memoir. It begins in Baltimore. The composer Philip Glass has written a memoir. It begins…
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The Decline of the University Press
The university press system has faced a rapid decline. Research libraries, looking to cut costs to pay for expensive electronic journal subscriptions, buy fewer monographs. Subsidies from parent institutions are down. Meanwhile, the researchers who publish with and rely on…
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The Rise of a New Socialist Literary Scene
Facing financial inequality and burdened with debt, millennials have discovered Marxism, writes Timothy Shenk for the Nation. And millennial writers are leveraging technology, rejecting old guard institutions, and constructing new forums for discussion: Combine all this with some fondness for…
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How Toxic Is Online Feminism?
There’s a heated conversation about online feminism happening—where else?—online right now. Ignited by a piece in the Nation about Internet toxicity as well as an ill-advised xoJane piece about white privilege in yoga class, the discussion is focusing on intersectionality in…
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Rembering Wanda Coleman
Known as the “L.A. Blueswoman” and “the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles”, Wanda Coleman passed away at the age of 67 on November 22, 2013. There are some very lovely tributes to Coleman at the LA Times and at…
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“What the Hell Is A ‘Writer of Color,’ Anyway?”
As part of her latest push to get the literary community talking seriously about diversity, our inimitable essays editor Roxane Gay has a piece up at the Nation about some of the thrilling, confounding, challenging books by writers of color out right…
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What VIDA Stats Mean on A Personal Level
This year’s VIDA stats gave us a (depressing) wide-lens view of women’s status in the writing industry, but for a (depressing) close-up perspective, read Deborah Copaken Kogan’s recent essay in The Nation about the sexism she’s encountered during her career as a photographer…