The Ballad in the Street

Listening for the muffled strains of a national culture

The Edgy Optimist

At 76, saxist Sonny Rollins is still on top of his game

When Maestros Were Maestros

Innovator, mentor, tyrant, Leopold Stokowski brought real joy to music making

The Historical Present

Robert Fagle’s bold solutions to the problem of Virgil

The Aeneid By Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles

Pleasure out of Desperation

Thomas Eakins, yearning for the ideal in a materialistic age

Portrait: The Life of Thomas Eakins By William S. McFeely

Organized Violence

In the last century, where did warfare end and genocide begin?

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West By Niall Ferguson

Poised Between the Ancient and the New

Isaac B. Singer: A Life By Florence Noiville

What if Nature Had Been Thrifty?

The Best of All Possible Worlds: Mathematics and Destiny By Ivar Ekeland

Going Native

When American literature became good enough for Americans, what happened to the literary canon?

A Walk Around the Block

The Shipping News

Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge

American Carthage

Echoes from the ancient conflicts between Hannibal’s city and Rome continue to reverberate well into the present

Star Trek: Discovery

“Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Lorena Diosdado

Multifaceted Latinx identities

Raspberry Heaven

A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine

A Midsummer Night’s Stream

Can digital performances save America’s nonprofit theaters?

Another You

“Pin Pricks of Loneliness” by Etheridge Knight

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Coming Home

Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng

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