More than forty of my essays are available in a single volume as The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society. The pieces below are either too new to have been included or are literary reviews and therefore fall outside the scope of the collection.
Selected Older
Why I Left Academia (Since You’re Wondering)
Quillette, August 17, 2022.
Soul-Making Studies
A defense of great books courses. Liberties, Summer 2022.
On the Bobos
The political stupidity of the liberal elite. Salmagundi, Spring-Summer 2022.
Escaping American Tribalism
Learning to question my beliefs more deeply than I ever had before. UnHerd, March 2022.
Disenchantment and Dogma
On the limits, and virtues, of secularism. Salmagundi, Fall 2021-Winter 2022.
Where Have You Gone, Annie Dillard?
Annie Dillard. The Atlantic, March 2016.
Their Struggle
Elena Ferrante, The Neapolitan Novels. The Nation, October 12, 2015.
Controlled Rapture
John Updike. The New Republic, September 15, 2014.
Dread and Wonder
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya. The Nation, March 5, 2014.
The Jewish Mark Twain
Sholem Aleichem. The Atlantic, January/February 2014.
Beattitudes
Anne Beattie, The New Yorker Stories and Mrs. Nixon. The Nation, December 12, 2011.
The Children’s Hospital
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King. The Nation, July 4-11, 2011.
The Whole Human Mess
Saul Bellow. The Nation, December 13, 2010.
The Renunciation Artist
Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. The Nation, March 1, 2010.
Aracataca and Sucre
Gabriel García Márquez. The Nation, September 21, 2009.
Last Evenings on Earth
Roberto Bolaño, 2666. The New Republic, February 18, 2009.
Recent
Post-Election
Liberal exhaustion and the not-left. Salmagundi, Spring-Summer 2025.
Who Are the Real Elite?
A brief consideration. Extra Credit blog (UT Austin), February 12, 2025.
Here Come the Allodidacts
A collaborative report on countercultural reading. The Hinternet, February 9, 2025.
How Art Lost Its Way
Arts criticism then and now, and why it matters. Persuasion, January 6, 2025.
Academe’s Divorce From Reality
Post-election analysis. Chronicle of Higher Education, November 21, 2024.
Respect, or The Missing Relation
On letting the other be other. Liberties, Fall 2024.
Deep Reading Will Save Your Soul
The humanities move off campus. Persuasion, May 29, 2024.
How Pseudo-Intellectualism Ruined Journalism
Persuasion, March 8, 2024.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Art
Salmagundi, Fall 2023-Winter 2024.
The Quality to Be Tragic
Elizabeth Hardwick. Liberties, Fall 2023.
Take A Position, Not A Side
Toward a healthier political discourse. Persuasion, October 2, 2023.
Chuck Your Privilege
A back-to-school message for elite college students. Persuasion, September 6, 2023.
We’re All Bored of Culture
Why the arts are safe and predictable now. Tablet, May 16, 2023.
Why AI Will Never Rival Human Creativity
Originality is a low-probability choice. Persuasion, May 8, 2023.
Partisanship & Denial
The partisan mentality and the left/liberal bubble. Salmagundi, Spring-Summer 2023.
There Is No Right Side of History
Against the progressive myth of history. The Free Press, January 2, 2023.
On Not Drinking the Kool-Aid
Woke art, and art and politics more generally. Salmagundi, Fall 2022-Winter 2023.