Do people still need to study the humanities? You’d think the answer is “yes, of course,” but the issue is far more complicated than that. In a bid to sort it out, The New Republic recently asked a group of former university presidents to give their viewpoints on the matter. Sample quote: “Humanities faculty have too often conspired well.” Pair with: our own Nick Ripatrazone on coming to writing from outside the humanities.
Study Hall
Appearing Elsewhere
Our own Bill Morris has a piece in Artes Magazine about a landscape painter, Rackstraw Downes, who is finally “having a long-overdue moment.”
●
●
Literary Icons Interview Each Other
Year in Reading alum Margaret Atwood interviews Louise Erdrich. They discuss Canada, reproductive rights, their hopes for the future and writing messy characters in a dystopia. Find it in Elle.
Cheating and a Happy Marriage
In The Secret Lives of Wives, more than two hundred women reveal to Iris Krasnow how they keep their relationships together, from separate vacations to “boyfriend with boundaries.”
New from George Saunders
Not All Dads Are Good Dads
Andrew Thurman writes about a literary genre he's particularly invested in: the Bad Dad Memoir, typically written by the offspring of said Bad Dads.
●
●
●
Writing Without Rain
“We don’t yet know how to make it rain. But increasingly, we may be talking about what to do when the rain doesn’t come.” Anna North writes for The New York Times about literature in the age of drought.
●
●
He Is the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy was one cold dude. Read some of these excerpts from his letters and find your day ruined. Highlights include a critique of a prime minister’s funeral and his excitement at the hanging of Elizabeth Martha Brown, accused of killing her husband. Here’s a Millions piece on the difficulties of teaching Hardy in 21st-century Florida.
●
●
Kevin Nguyen at It Again
“[P]ublishing is a behemoth that is trudging along slowly in the direction of progress. But it still has a long way to go.” GQ editor and Year-in-Reading alum Kevin Nguyen gets the interview treatment from Poets & Writers (and gives a few shout-outs to us while he’s at it!). Among the books he’s read in the last year that stood out: “White Tears by Hari Kunzru by a mile.”