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The New Yorker

Judith Butler photographed by Jess T. Dugan for 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.

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Above the Fold

Essential reading for today.

How to Defend or Prosecute Donald Trump

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.

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Portfolio

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.

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Annals of Communications

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?

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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.

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Books

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.

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The Critics

Cultural Comment

“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.

On Television

“The Contestant” Is More Than a Cautionary Tale

The documentary charts the rise of one of the earliest reality-TV stars and the ethically queasy choices that cemented his fame—but it’s elevated by its interest in what came afterward.

The Current Cinema

“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 Art World

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.

The Theatre

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.

Cultural Comment

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.

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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.

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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.

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American Chronicles

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.

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Peruse a gallery ofcartoons from the issue »

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. 

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Annals of Inquiry

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.

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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.

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Annals of National Security

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.

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A Critic at Large

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.

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Puzzles & Games

Take a break and play.

The Crossword

A puzzle that ranges in difficulty, with the occasional theme.

Solve the latest puzzle

The Mini

A bite-size crossword, for a quick diversion.

Solve the latest puzzle

Name Drop

Can you guess the notable person in six clues or fewer?

Play a quiz from the vault

Cartoon Caption Contest

We provide a cartoon, you provide a caption.

Enter this week’s contest
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In Case You Missed It

What George Kelly’s Mistrial Says About How We See the Border
The Arizona rancher was accused of killing a migrant. A tragedy, and a possible murder, quickly became a political cause.
Does the “Hot Hand” Exist in Hockey?
Nearly every hockey fan and player will tell you that, when the playoffs arrive, you have to go with the goalie who’s on a roll. Are they right?
Our Dada Era of Internet Memes
How the viral TikToks of a Chinese glycine factory elucidate our increasingly chaotic digital environment.
The Haiti That Still Dreams
The country is being defined by disaster. What would it mean to tell a new story?
He footed off his shoes, the logs balanced on an arm, and tugged the door shut. Behind him the rain slanted into the open porch in tight, rattling crescendos. Pulsed with the crashing wind.

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

Breaking Bread

Breaking a Ramadan Fast with Ramy Youssef

Archives Dept.

The Civil War Photographers Before Kirsten Dunst

The Boards

How to Play Putin

Dept. of Moves

A Miami Heat Rookie Gets Checkmated

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Shouts & Murmurs

Cartoons, comics, and other funny stuff. Sign up for the Humor newsletter.

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