Was Emancipation Constitutional?
Noah Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard, believes that the eleven slave states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy in...
The Spell of Marble
In theory, early modern Italians regarded sculpture as a lower form of art, harsh physical labor unsuited to a gentleman. In fact, like their ancient forebears,...
Never the Same Step Twice
In a scene from the otherwise unremarkable 1937 Warner Brothers musical Varsity Show, the star, Dick Powell, finds some fraternity boys shirking their studies by watching...
The Inimitable Hardwick
To the Editors: I am writing to respond to Merve Emre’s review of my biography of Elizabeth Hardwick [“The Act of Persuasion,” NYR, April 21]. I...
The Origins of ‘Banality’
To the Editors: Seyla Benhabib’s assertion that Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the banality of evil” was handed down to her by her husband, Heinrich Blücher, merits...
Modern Horror Is the Perfect Genre for Capturing the Black Experience
When I was in my early twenties I watched the movie “Annabelle” with my cousins and brother. It did its job in discomforting me, but I’ll...
7 Feminist Poetry Collections About Gender and Identity
Spring is the sweetest time to discover new poetry. Lingering daylight and blossoms, the chance to open a book on a park bench and be transported,...
Warm Fuzzies: 10 Feel-Good Nonfiction Books about Animals
If you adorned your childhood bedroom with posters of horse breeds or bird species (guilty on both counts right here), you’ve come to the right place....
Scares of Every Kind: 20 of the Best Genre-Blending Horror Novels
You walk into a bookstore, and it seems clear-cut, right? One section for sci-fi, one for fantasy, another for young adult novels. You know what you...
