Books
Some thought the Arab Spring could not have happened without social media. But the necessity makes the means and not vice versa. May ’68 didn’t need Facebook. They had transistor radios.
Books
In the United States today, education, especially in its public forms, paid for by taxpayers, is frequently the most contentious subject on the agendas of politicians, pundits, public-policy researchers, private-foundation funders, controversy-loving TV talking heads, pedagogical “experts” and, of c
Books
Last month, members of Colab gathered at Printed Matter for the opening of a new iteration of the A. More Store, the collective’s pop-up exhibit of cheap multiples. The display coincides with the publication of A Book About Colab (and Related Activities) (2015), a sumptuous collection of archival im
Books
No one writes letters anymore, but I still like reading them — especially when both sides of a correspondence are collected between two covers. No narrative, no argument — just the mercurial yet implicit unity of a relationship. Still, I’m not sure why I picked up this book.
Books
Aptly titled, Forbidden City is Gail Mazur’s seventh book of poetry. Before getting the book — which she sent me — I knew that Gail had written the poems in the years after her husband, Michael Mazur (1935–2009), had died of congestive heart failure.
Books
The Playground Project explores an era of artistic play.
Books
Bloom’s papers mine the histories of gift rituals, interrogate the meaning objects are endowed with as gifts, and place value on an object that is meant to be used once and then discarded.
Books
When I left off last week I was halfway through this quartet of low-life-in-the-midst-of-high-life novels, dissatisfied with the series’ prelude, Never Mind, but encouraged by the relative superiority of book two, Bad News.
Books
In the 16th century, Pierre Belon published one of the earliest scientific depictions of a dolphin: a woodcut with finely hatched skin and pointed teeth.
Books
To begin reading a contemporary novel isn’t easy, if you’re not in the habit.
Books
From initiation rites to harvest festivals, many traditional African rituals require participants to don masks and elaborate costumes that transform their wearers into spirits, beasts, or ancestral beings.
Books
Limp slices of bread smeared with butter, a single sausage lounging in orange soup, a presentation of pork knuckles resembling discarded brains — this is far from the stuff you'd find on the menu of your local farm-to-table eatery filled with upcycled furniture.