More Essays

"The Holocaust Angle: How a Group of NIMBYs Rewrote Alderney's History," Harper's, February 2024
On conspiracy theories in an English Channel tax haven

"Ad Nauseam," Harper's, December 2021
On Hanya Yanagihara's To Paradise

"A Spouse Divided," Bookforum, December 2021
On Dostoevsky's wife, Anna Snitkina, and two new biographies' misguided attempts to celebrate her

"Men in Dark Times," Harper's, July 2021
On the Trump-era misuse of Hannah Arendt

"The Strange Revival of Mabel Dodge Luhan," The New Yorker, June 2021
On Mabel Dodge Luhan, D.H. Lawrence, and how Rachel Cusk reduces their story in Second Place

"Nature's Revenge Porn," The Drift, June 2020
On Tiger King, Leni Riefenstahl, the concept of "wilderness," and Covid-19

"Now More So Than Ever," The Drift, June 2020
On the insularity of the literary media (with Kiara Barrow)

"A Different Backstory for Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon," The LA Review of Books, July 2018On literary patronage the cynical marketing of Zora Neale Hurston's long-unpublished manuscript





"Interview with Whit Stillman," Metrograph, September 2022
A conversation with the writer-director in advance of a screening of Barcelona and Metropolitan

"Barefoot Astroturf Situation," The Paris Review Daily, August 2022
Culture diary from a hectic week in June 2022

"Reality Bites," Bookforum, June 2022
On Elif Batuman's Either/Or

"The Year in 41 Debates," New York Times Sunday Review, December 2021
Short pieces on Britney Spears, Philip Roth, and social media for a year-end roundup.

"The Tragic Misfit Behind Harriet the Spy," The New Yorker, December 2021
On Harriet the Spy and her creator, Louise Fitzhugh

"Talking in Circles," Dissent, October 2021
On Occupy Wall Street, ten years later

"Attention Must Be Paid," Metrograph, February 2021
On three films by Frederick Wiseman

"No Rest for the Wiki," Bookforum, December 2020
On Wikipedia, traditional encyclopedias, and internet-era accuracy

"American Accident," The Drift, October 2020
On the Hollywood trope of the accidental president and the choice between Biden and Trump





"The Logic of Plunder," November 2023
Interview with Verónica Gago

"Corrupt Organizations," November 2023
On RICO and conspiracy theories

"A Desperate Situation Getting More Desperate," October 2023
Interview with Rashid Khalidi

"Not Really Disciplined About Disciplines," July 2023
Interview with Cathy Park Hong

"Extremely Online," July 2023
On Twitter and Instagram

"There's a Lot More That Needs to Be Done," February 2023
Interview with Barbara Smith

"Circling the Drain," February 2023
On the cultural landscape

"Feels Like Life," October 2022
Interview with Barbara Kruger

"Hindsight Is 2020," October 2022
On Covid-19

"A Catastrophic Loss of Faith in America," May 2022
Interview with Pankaj Mishra

"Gloom and Doom," May 2022
On Roe and a new era of reactionary politics

"Justice at the Necessary Scale," January 2022
Interview with Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

"Good Lord," January 2022
On literature for adults

"A New Form of War," September 2021
Interview with Samuel Moyn

"Eighteen Months," September 2021
On the pandemic, eighteen months in

"A Radical Demonstration of 'America First,'" May 2021
Interview with Adam Tooze

"Party Time," May 2021
On book reviews and the social dynamics of the literary world

"A Punishing American Zeitgeist," February 2021
Interview with Nikhil Pal Singh

"The First But Not the Last," February 2021
On feminism and Kamala Harris

"Naming the Work," October 2020
Interview with Silvia Federici

"A Feature, Not a Bug," October 2020
On liberals and social media

"A Worldwide Mutual Pact," June 2020
Interview with Wendy Brown