The Possibility of Humor

In his novel A Fool’s Kabbalah, Steve Stern writes in a manic whirl of disturbing and hilarious images as he follows the great historian of Jewish mysticism Gershom Scholem on his journey to gather up the remains of a vanished civilization.

Possessing the Painful Parts

Tyriek White’s We Are a Haunting traces the lives of Black Brooklynites dealing with the porous boundaries between the past and the present as they forge lives amid the detritus that others have discarded.

The Marbles & the Muses

A. E. Stallings’s reflections on the Elgin Marbles illustrate how beautiful objects have the power to inspire both the noblest effusions and the pettiest efforts at acquisition.

Europe’s Duty-Free Access Bankrolls Myanmar’s Military Repression

Five years after the coup, foreign brands and the EU's trade preferences continue to generate hard currency for a military regime waging war on its own people.

Mother Daughter Sister Wife

A new anthology of female Hungarian poets engages with the nation’s often tragic history through various forms of reticence, misdirection, and playfulness.

Seth Moulton Saw Trans Rights as a Political Liability. It Could Doom His Senate Campaign.

Rep. Seth Moulton is challenging Sen. Ed Markey — and struggling to land his message with his past anti-trans comments haunting him.

In Defense of Algebra

The mathematician Paul Lockhart believes to his core that math is the purest of the arts, and anyone can learn to love it.

Israel Attacking Iran’s Energy ‘Wasn’t a Surprise’ to the Trump Administration

Israel’s top diplomat in New York City says strikes like the one on Iran’s South Pars gas field were “part of the plan. ”