The New Yorker
Who’s Afraid of Judith Butler?
The philosopher and gender theorist has been denounced, demonized, even burned in effigy. In their latest work, they trace the history of a burgeoning global movement against “gender ideology.” Parul Sehgal talks to Butler about fear, recognition, and transformation.
Above the Fold
Essential reading for today.
Trump Is Turning Victimhood Into His Legal Strategy
In the early days of the trial, lawyers on both sides have started to reveal their strategies. Will the jury believe that Trump’s sordid acquisition of the White House was political business as usual?
A Generation of Distrust
Among the protesters on college campuses—and among the students who oppose them, too—there is a deepening disillusionment with American institutions.
Is 2024 Doomed to Repeat 1968 or 2020—or Both?
Donald Trump has now made clear that he won’t concede if he loses the election. Believe him.
How Much Aid Is Actually Reaching Gazans?
The chief economist of the U.N.’s World Food Programme on imminent famine and what’s needed to avoid it.
Columbia’s Campus in Crisis
Scenes of dissent and defiance at Columbia University, where scores of students have been arrested for participating in pro-Palestine protests.
Is Hunterbrook Media a News Outlet or a Hedge Fund?
The hybrid media-finance company wants to monetize investigative journalism in the public interest. Is it a visionary game changer or a cynical ploy?
The Political Scene
Trump’s Sleepy, Sleazy Criminal Trial
In his hush-money trial, for the first time in a decade, the former President is struggling to command attention.
Can the Left be Free?
The liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz wants to take back the language of liberty from the right.
Biden and the Politics of Home Efficiency
Congressional Republicans say efficiency requirements are threats to liberty, but the Biden Administration’s new building codes are the latest in a long list of environmental wins.
The Contradictions of U.S. Human-Rights Policy
Elliott Abrams, a longtime State Department official, on Israel’s war in Gaza—and his own record in Latin America.
How Far Should We Carry the Logic of the Animal-Rights Movement?
People who think seriously about the use and abuse of nonhuman creatures often end up calling for changes that might seem indefensible—at least, at first.
The Critics
“Challengers” Is Essentially a Well-Shot Commercial
Because the film has so little to say, viewers are free to simply focus on the vibes—which happen to be the area where Luca Guadagnino, its director, has most distinguished himself.
“The Contestant” Is More Than a Cautionary Tale
The documentary charts the rise of an early reality-TV star and the ethically queasy choices that cemented his fame—but it’s elevated by its interest in what came afterward.
“The Fall Guy” Is Gravity-Defying Fun, in Every Sense
Starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, this action-comedy about a stuntman, by the stuntman turned director David Leitch, sticks its landings, but don’t expect characterization.
The Dead Rise at the Venice Biennale
Stifled by a weird and desperate present, the show finds some life in the treasures of the past.
Three Broadway Shows Put Motherhood in the Spotlight
Paula Vogel’s “Mother Play,” Shaina Taub’s “Suffs,” and Amy Herzog’s “Mary Jane” strike back at the mother-as-monster dramatic trope.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-Comfort Movie
“The Boy and the Heron” finds the filmmaker revising—and sometimes upending—the themes that have defined his career.
What We’re Reading This Week
A story collection that exhibits a unique delicacy in chronicling Black life in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, a novel that cleverly intertwines paeans to the pleasures of eating with indictments of Japan’s standards for women, an immensely entertaining history constructed around medieval guidebooks and travelogues, and more.
Goings On
Recommendations from our writers on what to read, eat, watch, listen to, and more.
The Sui-Generis Films of Charles Atlas
Hilton Als on a new retrospective of the director’s joyous works. Plus: “Uncle Vanya” and “Staff Meal,” reviewed; superstar pianists at Carnegie Hall; and more.
Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It?
Erik Baker writes about new books that examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.
A Martini Tour of New York City
Martinis often appear in art as symbols of joy and closure. Gary Shteyngart dedicates himself to the cult of the cocktail, in a month of vermouth-rinsing and fat-washing.
Joanna Arnow’s Deceptively Plain Masterpiece
Richard Brody reviews “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed,” a film that mines the comic potential of distance and framing.
On Native Grounds
The Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, faces the cruel history of the agency she now leads. As the first Native American Cabinet member, she has made it part of her job to address the travesties of the past.
The Food Issue
Spoiler Alert: Leftovers for Dinner
How to host a dinner party for nine using a pre-trash haul from Too Good to Go and other food-waste apps. Carb-averse guests, beware.
In Search of Lost Flavors in Flushing
Rediscovering the tastes of childhood in New York’s biggest Chinatown.
Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation
How bots, mercenaries, and table scalpers have turned the restaurant reservation system inside out.
When Babies Rule the Dinner Table
In the past two decades, American parents have started to ditch the purées and give babies more choice—and more power—at mealtime.
The Secret Society Chasing Our Fading Attention
As ads and apps reduce our ability to focus, members of an order purportedly reaching back centuries seek to reset the world by understanding what happens between a person and a work of art.
Ideas
How ECMO Is Redefining Death
A medical technology can keep people alive when they otherwise would have died. Where will it lead?
The Revenge of the Home Page
As social networks become less reliable distributors of the news, consumers of digital journalism are seeking out an older form of online real estate.
Get Real
Video-game engines were designed to mimic the mechanics of the real world. How perfectly can reality be simulated?
What Is Noise?
Sometimes we embrace it, sometimes we hate it—and everything depends on who is making it.
Exposing Abu Ghraib
Twenty years ago this week, Seymour M. Hersh published a bombshell article about the torture and abuse carried out by American soldiers and contractors at the prison in Iraq. The reporting helped to set off a scandal that reverberated around the world. Some of the perpetrators had documented their own crimes with photos and video. In his 2004 exposé, Hersh named not only the men and women behind the abuse but also the soldier who brought the episode to light.
Academic Freedom Under Fire
Politicians despise it. Administrators aren’t defending it. But it made our universities great—and we’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Puzzles & Games
Take a break and play.
In Case You Missed It
It’s foul out there, he called, but she wasn’t in the main room.
He saw the signs of water ingress in the planks below the cabin windows. A wet stain that caught the light.Continue reading »
The Talk of the Town
Shouts & Murmurs
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