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

Snails

Watching for signs of wildlife

Web Essays

The Year That Spring Did Not Come

Looking back on the turmoil of 1968

Book Reviews

Literary Life on the Rocks

A writer’s own ordeal highlights the banal sameness of addiction

Arts

Galleries of the World

An interview with the Met’s Daniel H. Weiss

Article

What Is a Dog?

Friendship, faith, and love, for starters—yet our relationships with our canine companions contain many more unfathomable mysteries

Arts

Going Dutch

In these relentlessly disruptive times, 17th-century canvases from the Netherlands can provide moments of solace and hope

Article

Tuskegee Truth Teller

Peter Buxtun, like many medical whistleblowers, got little thanks for exposing a notorious scandal

Editors’ Picks

Five Books Banned for Dubious Reasons—So You Should Definitely Read Them

Banned Books Week draws attention to free speech, intellectual freedom, and the right to quietly read a good novel

Fiction

All Her Names

Asturias Days

Such as It Is

Read Me a Poem

“Guests” by Celia Thaxter 

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Next Line, Please

“What a Strange Path”

Three new prompts

Smarty Pants Podcast

Kinship and Contradictions

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity

Tuning Up

Verde

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

Asturias Days

Cats and Dogs

Read Me a Poem

“Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Katie Heller Saltoun

Tenderness and grit

Fiction

Magic Men

NEWSLETTER

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current issue

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

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Article

The Fair Fields
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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

Poetry

The Art of Tuning In

Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

Winter 2025

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

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Article

The Fair Fields
loading

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

Poetry

The Art of Tuning In

Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

Winter 2025