The Incredibly True Story of Fake Headlines
Are you still reading? Editors frequently use this space to include important contextual information about a news story.
Walter Benn Michaels: What’s His Deal?
The literary critic Walter Benn Michaels challenges the prevailing trends of postmodernist theory.
How Linguists Are Using Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary continues a long history of recording low-brow language. It’s also a repository of a specific kind of internet immaturity.
What We Lose When We Lose Indigenous Knowledge
By mistaking a culture’s history for fantasy, or by disrespecting the wealth of Indigenous knowledge, we're keeping up a Columbian, colonial tradition.
Who Decides Which Books Are “Great?”
The concept of “Great Books," the historian Tim Lacy explains, developed in the late nineteenth century as an attempt to foster a “democratic culture.”
The Patron Saint of Bookstores
100 years ago, Sylvia Beach, the first publisher of James Joyce’s Ulysses, opened the doors to her legendary bookstore, Shakespeare & Co.
Burn This Book!
Li Zhi’s exasperation with the corruption, greed, and superficiality of the powerbrokers in his society fueled his rebellious writing.