“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
There is an urgent need for new, more affirmative ways to participate in culture, especially against the ongoing systematic whiteness of publishing and the exclusivity of elite institutions. The post Our Golden Age of Reading (Online) appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
“When people write about the working-class world, which they rarely do, it is most often because they have left it behind,” admits Didier Eribon, in his 2009 French memoir of class transition, Returning to Reims. “They thereby contribute to perpetuating the social illegitimacy of the people they are speaking of in the very moment of speaking about them.” But he can only acknowledge this problem... The post “I Will Write to Avenge My Race”: Baglin, Louis, and Ernaux on Class Transi...| 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
Three new books examine care not in terms of rights-based independence models but rather new modes of caring. The post Will “Care” Save Us? appeared first on Public Books.| 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
Two novels published in 2024 return to some of the best-known, canonical figures and episodes from Mexico’s past. The post Once upon a Time in Tenoxtitlan appeared first on Public Books.| Public Books
What freshly nuanced perspectives might we bring to the violent late 20th-century history Coetzee describes? The post J. M. Coetzee’s “Disgrace” @ 25: A Roundtable appeared first on Public Books.| 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
Even at the low-security prison that held actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, sexual violence against imprisoned women is rampant.| Public Books
Police chases place ordinary citizens in grave danger. No amount of training or increasingly strict department policies will change that.| Public Books
“Arguments stand or fall to the degree to which the practice is done well.”| Public Books
On the top of the walls, I stopped to admire the panoramic Adriatic Sea views. Below, a basketball court abutted the walls, and kids were shooting hoops.| Public Books
“Tears of the Kingdom” lets you play through the planetary archive. In so doing, it suggests the pleasures of thinking at planetary scale.| Public Books
A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.| Public Books
Authorial responsibility to a real subject—living or dead—is one of art’s unresolved and probably unresolvable ethical questions.| 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
