The Music of Painting

Seventeenth-century debates over content and form, color and line, and artifice and reality are as relevant today as ever

The Autobiography of Biography

In which I tell how I was drawn again and again to the lives of African-American figures

Beyond the Colonies

What else happened during the year of independence?

West of the Revolution By Claudio Saunt

Bistro

Achy Breaky Verdi

The Nashville Opera’s new contest

Things Not Quite Said

A conversation about words

A Prophet Without Honor

There’s no authoritative biography yet for Joseph Smith, the notorious founding figure in Mormonism

Seduction

Maximalisma

A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her

Learning to Be Social

What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others?

American Carthage

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

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?

After the Fallout

On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific

In the Matter of the Commas

For the true literary stylist, this seemingly humble punctuation mark is a matter of precision, logic, individuality, and music

Splitting Our Sides

A new biography of a comedy pioneer

Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Liveby Susan Morrison

Mr. Olympia

When the ancient Greeks looked at human muscle, they saw something different than we do

In the Mushroom

True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business

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