What does it mean to be a woman who doesn’t want children?
Erin Lane challenges maternal exceptionalism and its myths.
Books
Vincent van Gogh, Still Life With French Novels and Rose, oil on canvas, 1887.
The American tradition of tearing down statues
Public monuments hold power. So does their destruction, says historian Erin Thompson.
A dinner party where women talk food
Alissa Wilkinson imagines Maya Angelou hosting Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, Laurie Colwin, and others.
Paul Mariani seeks wisdom among the ghosts
The poet, now in his eighties, asks profound questions in a dazzling array of poems.
Understanding homelessness at a citywide level
It’s a symptom of affluence more than poverty.
A theological exploration in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure book
Bethany Sollereder explores different approaches to understanding suffering—and enacts one.
A prophetic word against neoliberalism
It runs our lives while pretending it isn’t there, says Rodney Clapp. He is having none of it.
Can you like Dostoevsky?
Philosopher and linguist Julia Kristeva asks but does not answer this question about the Russian novelist’s complex work.
Animal midrash
Jewish scholar Laura Duhan-Kaplan opens our eyes to biblical birds, insects, and mammals.
Billy Graham’s transatlantic brand
America’s pastor stepped into a historical moment framed by the Cold War and secularization.
We need to talk about climate change
Scientist Katharine Hayhoe recommends focusing on common ground and hope.
Maggie Nelson finds freedom in the emphatic middle
Her new essay collection examines how Americans thread the needle between care and constraint.
How Christena Cleveland walked away from “whitemalegod”
The social psychologist went on a revolutionary pilgrimage in search of the sacred Black feminine.
Reckoning with the careless ableism of the church
Amy Kenny’s call for disability justice leads with righteous anger but offers grace.
The world through Niebuhr’s eyes
38 scholars weigh in on Reinhold Niebuhr’s life and times, his allies and adversaries, his theology and ethics
