Not Lost in a BookThose of us who believe in the power of books worry all the time that reading, as a pursuit, is collapsing, eclipsed by (depending on the era) streaming video, the internet, the television, or the hula hoop.
ShibbolethA philosophy without a politics is common enough. Aesthetes, ethicists, novelists—all may be easily critiqued and found wanting on this basis. But there is also the danger of a politics without a philosophy.
Will results be downgraded after IB exam leak?Students studying the International Baccalaureate (IB) have been left fearful they will be forced to retake exams or have their qualifications downgraded after question papers were leaked online.
How outside-the-classroom initiatives are redefining History education in IndiaIn 2023, when former journalist Amit Arora and Prof. Rakesh Basant, former Dean at IIM-Ahmedabad, organised India’s first History Literature Festival (HLF) at Ahmedabad University, they worried that the experiment might fall flat.
Book as EnemySmoking might be banned at book fairs, while one doesn’t expect books to be banned from book fairs. Even if a character in one of the books exhibited at a fair is smoking, this wouldn’t lead to a ban on characters smoking in books, or to a ban on that specific book.
Elliott Abrams and the Contradictions of U.S. Human-Rights PolicyFor more than four decades, Elliott Abrams has been near the center of American foreign policy. Abrams was an Assistant Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration, a deputy national-security adviser under George W.
Kim Sherwood on Women in the World of BondThe Bond Girl. The phrase itself is a source of celebration and contention. Few other thriller writers before Ian Fleming placed such emphasis on creating rounded female protagonists with their own backgrounds, motives and agency.
A Massive Crane Helping With the Baltimore Bridge Cleanup Was Built to Recover a Sunken Soviet SubmarineCleanup efforts are underway in Baltimore, where the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River last month after being struck by a cargo ship. Removing pieces of the mangled bridge from the river will be a massive undertaking that could take weeks.
For Millions of Americans, Tap Water Has a High Dose of FluorideThe town of Seagraves sits on the high plains of West Texas, not far from the New Mexico border. Nearby, water pumped from the Ogallala Aquifer irrigates fields of peanuts and cotton. Dissolved in that West Texas water are copious amounts of fluoride.
The Beautifully Unnerving Gaze of “Evil Does Not Exist”The Japanese writer and director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi operates in a key of seductively textured realism: present-day stories, crystalline images, unadorned performances, quotidian intimacies.
Cutting Class: On the Myth of the Middle Class WriterDarryl Lorenzo Wellington was for two years the sixth poet laureate of Santa Fe. He also sold his plasma to get by. One of the mirages that resides in many books today, of course, for him and for many of us, is the idea of its author being a “middle class writer.
The Town That Kept Its Nuclear Bunker a Secret for Three DecadesWest Virginia’s opulent Greenbrier resort has been a playground for princes and politicians since its opening in 1778.
Welcome to the Ancient Roman Festival for Sex WorkWhen many think of Ancient Roman stadiums, gladiators or chariot racing often come to mind. But another type of games took place in such amphitheaters during spring time—ones full of colors, flowers, and sex.
Dua Lipa Devotes Herself to Pleasure with “Radical Optimism”Recently, some of the world’s biggest pop stars have been eschewing bangers in favor of a more postmodern, self-referential approach to the form.
8 Sci-Noir Books that Blend GenresIn the world of reading, science fiction books give us futuristic and/or speculative worlds that ask and answer questions about what we would be like with access to advanced technologies.