American literature

Emerson Never Practiced the Self-Reliance He Preached

by Mark Greif

Historian Robert A. Gross's new "The Transcendentalists and Their World" sets the famous experiments in living of Emerson and Thoreau in the social context of the town of Concord, through which the writers understood the shocks of modernization. 

Toni Morrison's Vision of Justice Was an Ethos of Care

by Farah Jasmine Griffin

"What does justice look like for centuries of systemic abuse and violence enacted by a society built upon withholding justice from Black people? In all of her novels Toni Morrison contemplates the nature and practice of justice."

If the Author Is a Bad Person, Does That Change Anything?

by Judith Shulevitz

"Roth had baggage in all domains of life, and Bailey, an eager bellhop, carries the whole load for him—the unhappy marriages and contentious divorces and relationships and affairs and everything else as well."

Literary and Manual Labors: Pittsfield, Massachusetts

by Jeffrey Lawrence

Herman Melville's move to Pittsfield in western Massachusetts wasn't a withdrawal from society; he was active in building the cultural life of the Berkshire region. 

Writer Amiri Baraka and the Endless Controversies

by Bruce Chadwick

A review of Looking for LeRoy, a play about one of the most controversial playwrights and poets in American history