Speech Bubbles

When Actions Are Words

How certain speech acts perform actions and alter our social reality.
William Shakespeare's King Lear

When King Lear Was a Rom-Com

The King Lear people saw for almost two centuries was very different from Shakespeare's.
Khirbet Khizeh Courtesy of Delcan & Company

1949 Israeli novel Khirbet Khizeh reissued by FSG

Israeli writer S. Yizhar’s 1949 novella Khirbet Khizeh, first published in English in 2008 and recently reissued in English by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Pilot flying an airplane enjoying the view.

The Poetry Up There: An Interview With Skyfaring Author and Pilot Mark Vanhoenacker

Mark Vanhoenacker, pilot and onetime PhD candidate in East African history speaks about Skyfaring, his debut book about aviation.
An office secretary - 1970s

A Woman’s Life in Publishing

Anita D. McClellan entered the publishing industry as a secretary, one of the few opportunities available to women at the time. We tell her story.
King James Bible

How the King James Bible Influenced American Literature

The King James Bible, the most popular version read worldwide, had a lasting influence on the American literary canon.
Front of Nobel Prize medal

On The Cultural Logic of Prizes

Prizes and awards are forms of cultural capital in prestige-making projects.
Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian investigative journalist and prose writer, Nobel laureate in Literature 2015

Read Work From 2015 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Svetlana Alexievich

Read an excerpt from "War's Womanly Face," a book by the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize Svetlana Alexievich about female Russian soldiers in World War II.
Portrait of William Shakespeare

Linguistic Anarchy! It’s all Pun and Games Until Somebody Loses a Sign

The pun is in an interesting bind: it is both ubiquitous and reviled. We try to understand why.