The Past Is Never Dead: On TV’s Backstory Problem
Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
Culture
Essays from the world of letters, art, and ideas.
Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
In an excerpt from LARB Quarterly no. 41, “Truth,” Sarah Yanni accounts for what she left behind when she called off her wedding—and what she...
Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
Ryan Shea revisits Guillermo Gasió’s 1988 anthology “Borges en Japon, Japon en Borges.”
Jonathan van Harmelen reveals a lesser-known, unappreciated history of American film through the work of Asian American makers and studios.
The modern university is an efficient site for the neoliberal commoditizing of knowledge.
In honor of National Talk Like Shakespeare Day, Frank Bergon writes about Shakespeare’s possible use of the Basque language.
In the first of a series, Osagie K. Obasogie explores the history and persistence of eugenics in science, medicine, and elsewhere.
Are people—and the United States—doomed to be the subalterns of the aristocrats?
Maria Bose and Jason Willwerscheid analyze corporate moves to adapt prestige video games into prestige TV.
Theo Spielberg appreciates Fatima Al Qadiri’s haunting score for the 2019 Senegalese film “Atlantics.”
Devin Griffiths reads Frank Herbert’s “Dune” as a novel of environmental protest.
On this special episode, hosts Medaya Ocher, Kate Wolf, and Eric Newman talk about the ethics and politics of memoir in the wake of several recent...
Nine poets and critics commemorate the late Lyn Hejinian.