Anne-Marie Slaughter: Can Women–and Men–Have it All?
“Let’s make the feminist revolution, a humanist revolution. As whole human beings we will be better caregivers and breadwinners…the revolution for human equality is happening…how far…
What Leads Us, the Head or the Heart? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and Steven Pinker Ted Talk
Plato’s main aim was less to teach than to show how you don’t know what you really think you know. The brilliant and provocative Rebecca Newberger…
Are Humans Morally Progressing? Steven Pinker’s hopeful message also seen as reductionistic
Taboos, Pinker says, certainly served (and serves) a purpose in human societies, in general by keeping one connected to the tribe through a shared sets of…
Steven Johnson: 2 Things Every Innovator Needs
“Chance favors the connected mind.” How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Steven Johnson’s fascinating tour takes us from the “liquid networks” of London’s coffee houses to Charles…
Julio Cortazar: On Literary Games, Imagination, Reading and Writing
The long gangly arms, the large head still barely containing the wide-set eyes, one almost always set off askance. Julio Cortazar was an imposing presence. Probably…
Clarice Lispector: 2 Primitive Elegant Literary Experiments
My recent “discovery” of Clarice Lispector was like striking gold. It’s funny the way these arcane writers are becoming increasingly known. I won’t dare say popular.…
Multiplying Potential Literature: Daniel Levin Becker’s Many Subtle Channels
Should all “potential” literature become “realized”? Well, no. And that’s one of the subtler explorations such a group as the 1960-founded Oulipo spends time considering. Many Subtle…
3 Fantastic Experiments + 1 New Way of Seeing: Georges Perec
Georges Perec seems to be coming into a kind of fashion here at the top end of the 21st century. The under-translated OuLiPian Parisian created remarkable constraints…
It’s Not About the Bike: The “Book” on Lance Armstrong
It’s not about the bike anymore, no. It’s not even about character flaws from the loss of a healthy father figure in his life. And you…
Barry Hannah: A Short Ride with the “2nd King” of Mississippi Literature
Will Barry Hannah’s death prompt the sort of popularity that largely eluded him in life–as it does for so many writers? Louis Bourgeois has done his part,…
