Robert Zaretsky

Robert Zaretsky teaches in the Honors College at the University of Houston. He is the author most recently of Victories Never Last: Reading and Caregiving in a Time of Plague.

Love in the Time of Camus

What the French writer can teach us about surviving a pandemic

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday May 14, 2020

The Long 20th Century of Terror

A history in ten books

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday August 18, 2016

The Fabulist

A literary critic’s ugly deception

By Robert Zaretsky | Tuesday March 11, 2014

My Life as a Door

Not exactly Yeats, but noteworthy nonetheless

By Robert Zaretsky | Friday June 1, 2012

Plunging to Earth

Once the sport of daredevils, skydiving now offers it existential thrills to grandmothers, pudgy geeks, and even the occasional college professor

By Robert Zaretsky | Friday June 3, 2011

Giving Absurdity Its Due

In the Panthéon, Albert Camus joins a kindred soul

By Robert Zaretsky | Monday March 1, 2010

The Importance of Being Idle

By Robert Zaretsky | Monday March 30, 2026

The Popper Principle

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday January 29, 2026

Compassionate Curmudgeon

By Robert Zaretsky | Monday December 1, 2025

Days of Awe

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday September 25, 2025

Visions From Jura

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday May 29, 2025

The Resistance Fighter as Philosopher

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday February 27, 2025

The Diagnostician of Despair

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday December 19, 2024

Silent Partner

By Robert Zaretsky | Tuesday September 3, 2024

Nights at the Opera

By Robert Zaretsky | Thursday August 15, 2024

Iris as Pupil

By Robert Zaretsky | Friday March 1, 2024

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