Sharon Marcus edits the Film section of Public Books. She is Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a| Public Books
“Pronouncing a sentence about a person, wrapping them up in your narrative, can be a very gracious action, or a cruel one, or probably most often both.” The post “Conjuring and Reality”: An Interview with Jeanne Thornton appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
Apple’s “Price-Tag TV,” to propose a new entrant to the TV name game, is expensive programming about folks who like expensive things, made for viewers who either can’t see or don’t care about the difference between good and expensive. The post Price-Tag TV and the Transformation of Television Prestige appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month. The post On Our Nightstands: September 2025 appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
“In recent years, Almodóvar’s films have become more serious, moving away from the campy melodrama and drugged gazpacho we knew and loved him for, toward a mature reckoning with the bigger questions of existence.” The post Young Almodóvar Versus Old Almodóvar in the World Series of Love appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
Are you a banker or a manufacturer or an industrialist? If so, Stendhal doesn’t want you to read “Love”; you wouldn’t understand. The post B-Sides: Stendhal’s “Love” appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
“Dahomey” narrates the Danxomèan treasures’ epic journey home. And yet, the film remains haunted by the visible and invisible human labor that made this homecoming—and its cinematic telling—possible.| Public Books
“I had seen a lot of bitumen in the devastated landscapes of the bitumen mines. But seeing it here, in such a mundane and tranquil setting, surprised me. That was when I first understood that this material is natural.” The post “Suddenly, the New Story Was There” appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
Reframed as a “bewitched middlebrow,” Buzzati’s fiction re-enters literary history not as a comforting escape, but as a sharp tool for existential inquiry. The post Betwixt or Bewitched? Rethinking the “Middlebrow” with Dino Buzzati appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
A translation renaissance in US publishing just ended. And you probably missed it. The post How Translations Sell: Three U.S. Eras of International Bestsellers appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
“From the very beginning, I knew I was part of a social movement for undocumented immigrants’ rights.” The post “If You Do Something Social, You Have to Do It Local”: Pedro Lasch on Art, Protest, and Migration appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
Given that the border is already mystified as a technology, new forms of computerized border technologies doubly fetishize the configurations of people, materials, force, and law that compose bordering practices.| Public Books
“The Austen biography space is fairly saturated and covered. But there’s still a lot more we can learn by seeing her in context: that is, by seeing Austen in relation to her society, her family, her friends.”| Public Books
To reduce the manifold harms of college football, fiery calls for abolition pointed at university decision makers and public health officials won’t get the job done.| Public Books
“Securing the first permanent, universal, and immediate abolition of slavery was Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s greatest success and is his legacy.”| Public Books
The trauma plot and the slut-shaming dossier are actually parallel formations, reveals “The Guest.”| Public Books
The appearance of strangers within family photo albums was part of how a Soviet imagined and imaged community was constructed and sustained.| Public Books
Sarah Kessler edits the TV section of Public Books. A media scholar and television critic, her articles and essays have appeared in the Brooklyn| Public Books
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.| Public Books
But what lies beyond the end of the world? Casting off the trappings accreted by the post-apocalyptic genre emerge stories of the post-post-apocalyptic.| Public Books
If the future hasn’t changed in the past, how could it possibly change now?| Public Books
When, how, and why does collective organizing achieve positive effects for those engaging in this difficult, and oftentimes risky, endeavor?| Public Books
In her latest, Sheila Heti embarks on an inverted Oulipian experiment, producing content in a fundamentally unrestricted manner.| Public Books
Should satirical art have equal measures of heart?| Public Books
“Borders generate more human possibilities: citizens standing for the rights of noncitizens, finding them refuge, seeking them sanctuary, pushing at the margins of the state and its sovereignty.”| Public Books
Playbills, programs, tickets: such physical documents are no longer part of seeing a show on Broadway. Does it matter?| Public Books
