Criticism

Is the Twenty-First Century a Creative Void?

Critics mourn a bygone cultural era. But nostalgia for the new isn't new.

Audrey Wollen

Louise Lawler’s yellowy dye-destruction print of Warhol’s “Round Marilyn”

Searching for Seamus Heaney

What I found when I resolved to read him

Elisa Gonzalez

James Schuyler’s Genius

Why our greatest poet of the everyday has become a poet of the moment

Mae Losasso

The Elusive Poet of Desire

Why biographers can’t pin Cavafy down

Langdon Hammer

Reading the Declaration of Independence as Holy Text

How the American creed emerged—and evolved—over 250 years

Kathryn Lofton

Terrence Malick’s Disciples

Why the auteur is the most influential director in Hollywood

Bilge Ebiri

Browse

Criticism

A movie still of Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce at dusk in “The Brutalist”

America the Brutal

Why The Brutalist isn’t really about architecture

Christopher Hawthorne

February 18, 2025

Black-and-white photo of R.E.M.’s band members standing in a backstage hallway

The Kings of College Radio

What happened when R.E.M. went mainstream

Mina Tavakoli

February 5, 2025

A Miracle at the Met

Siena: The Rise of Painting brings together an astonishing group of artworks

Rachel Eisendrath

January 15, 2025

Most-Read Prose White Text on a Plum-Colored Background

From the Editors

Our Most-Read Prose of 2024

December 17, 2024

Inheriting Impressionism

Monet and Ja’Tovia Gary among the water lilies

Rachel Cohen

December 10, 2024

The Sexual Histories of Alan Hollinghurst

In Our Evenings, the novelist grapples with a divided Britain

Andrew Martin

December 10, 2024

The Surrealists Move to Mexico City

What Leonora Carrington and her peers found in their new home

Chloe Aridjis

December 10, 2024

Chantal Akerman’s Elusive Interiors

What the filmmaker’s portrayal of women reveals—and withholds

Emily LaBarge

September 9, 2024

How Mike Kelley Became Himself

The artist’s search for subcultural America

Jonathan Griffin

September 9, 2024

Is Blasphemy Illiberal?

Salman Rushdie’s thoroughly modern controversies

Len Gutkin

September 9, 2024

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