Spring 2023

Cover Story

The Goddess Complex

A set of revered stone deities was stolen from a temple in northwestern India; their story can tell us much about our current reckoning with antiquities trafficking

by Elizabeth Kadetsky

Articles

The Sound of Wood and Steel

A new exhibition explores the guitar’s power and influence in American art and life

by Steve Yarbrough

Look Back in Wonder

A father searches for the secret to empathy in the face of unthinkable loss

by David McGlynn

The World at the End of a Line

The grandson of one of American literature’s Lost Generation novelists reflects on his namesake’s love of the sea

by John Dos Passos Coggin

The Pain Principle

What if the animal rights movement abandoned its focus on suffering and appealed to a different set of human emotions?

by Matthew Denton-Edmundson

Phantoms

What it’s like to navigate the world when your senses conjure up phenomena that others can’t perceive

by Caitriona Lally

I’ll Be Seeing You

The search for traces of a beloved writer led to an uncertain pilgrimage—and a friendship that endured over distance and time

by Patricia Hampl

Departments

Book Reviews

Death in Drohobych

Death in Drohobych

A new biography of a Polish literary master

Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough
Doors of Perception

Doors of Perception

The often unreliable ways we interpret reality

Natalie Angier
Culture Shock

Culture Shock

The hidden history of reverse colonization

Ilan Stavans
Life at the Bottom

Life at the Bottom

It’s not just the rich who victimize the poor

Nancy Isenberg
The Center Cannot Hold

The Center Cannot Hold

A kaleidoscopic journey through a divided country

Elizabeth D. Samet
Tales of Memory and Forgetting

Tales of Memory and Forgetting

What happens when we cease to be who we were?

Scott Stossel
Errant Thought

Errant Thought

Can we keep the Enlightenment from dimming?

Steven G. Kellman