SPOTLIGHT

The Diagnostician of Despair

Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin

By Robert Zaretsky Thursday, December 19, 2024

SPOTLIGHT

The Diagnostician of Despair

Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin

By Robert Zaretsky Thursday, December 19, 2024

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Opera 101

A crash course in how to love one of the most elusive art forms

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Following the Current

Measure by Measure

The Maestro as Engineer

Ernest Ansermet and Arthur Honegger’s speeding train

View from Rue Saint-Georges

Protected by Privilege?

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Time to Tee Up

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Handel’s ode for November 22

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“Guests” by Celia Thaxter 

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Next Line, Please

“What a Strange Path”

Three new prompts

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Kinship and Contradictions

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Verde

Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew

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“Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright

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Portrait of the Artist

Katie Heller Saltoun

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Magic Men

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Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)
Book Reviews

Divided Providence

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Article

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Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil

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Winter 2025