Pilgrim of Eternity

The loves and legends of Lord Byron

Byron in Love: A Short Daring Life By Edna O'Brien

Remembering John Updike

A critic and his decades-long correspondence with one of America’s best “freelance writers”

The Terminator Comes to Wall Street

How computer modeling worsened the financial crisis and what we ought to do about it

Response to Our Winter Issue

The Peacock Problem

Does sexual selection really explain enough?

The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness By Joan Roughgarden

Paris: A Twombly Ceiling

Purpose-Driven Life

Evolution does not rob life of meaning, but creates meaning. It also makes possible our own capacity for creativity.

Second Chances, Social Forgiveness, and the Internet

We need the means, both technological and legal, to replace measures once woven into the fabric of communities

The Potency of Breathless

At 50, Godard’s film still asks how something this bad can be so good

The Peacock Problem

What does evolution say about why we make art?

The Art Instinct By Denis Dutton

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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