I can remember exactly where I was when I first read Walt Whitman. Lying on the bed in my girlfriend’s dorm room in college, I started reading “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass out loud and, much to my …
Can love survive gender politics?
I go to the algorithm the way I imagine some of my ancestors went to church. I go for company. I go because everyone is already there. I go for conversation, or, on days when I want to sit alone, …
The torture of an unphilosophical life
Even if you haven’t read Robert Musil’s unfinished modernist masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities, you probably agree that it has a great title. If you have read it, I’m sure you agree, because the novel returns obsessively to the theme …
The Leopard holds a warning for Europe
The great unification processes of the late 19th century inspired some of the world’s most famous authors. In 1886, Henry James explored the triangular relationship between a Confederate War veteran from Mississippi and two New England feminist abolitionists in The …
