Issue 44
Middlemen
Winter 2023
Why is everything gray? Two paths for the abortion clinic. Laura Preston on robots and real estate. Victoria Lomasko’s last days in Russia. The naked and the dead. Drama by Stephen Squibb, fiction by Thomas Bolt.
Issue 43
Unreal
Summer 2022
What’s next for abortion? Do museum protests work? Blow up a SCOTUS justice. Direct action and dishwashing at Line 3; closed caption poetry at the caption place. Nicolás Medina Mora reads Heriberto Yépez, Lisa Borst reads Lisa Carver. Fiction by Mark Doten and Vladimir Sorokin.
Issue 42
Vanishing Act
Spring 2022
Arctic eco-heist! Did the New Left do neoliberalism? Digital projection: the phantom menace. The paranoid style in American politics, the narcissistic style in American podcasts. Haley Mlotek reads Deborah Levy. Sarah Resnick visits the cryptosphere.
Issue 41
Snake Oil
Fall 2021
Proletkino, vaccine drama, Ralph Ellison in Italian, and billionaires in space. Translation from Iran and Ukraine. New fiction by Rose Rejouis, Elisa Albert, and Jill Crawford. Elias Rodriques revisits Mary Beth G. Andrea Long Chu tries brain magnets.
Issue 40
Hindsight
Summer 2021
So you wrote a thing. Automatic writing vs. the algorithmic unconscious. Who’s afraid of the #resistancehag? Rachel Kushner on Palestine, Tobi Haslett on the George Floyd riots. Fiction by Corley Miller and Vladimir Sorokin.
Issue 39
Take Care
Winter 2021
Who cares for the care workers? What next for the restaurant? Victoria Lomasko in Minsk; Joshua Craze in Juba. Anthony Veasna So on Pavement and grief; Matthew Shen Goodman on Minor Feelings. Fiction by Jenny Zhang and Christian Jungersen.
Issue 38
Death Wish
Fall 2020
Jeremy O. Harris at !!!!!, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore at the gay bar. Deregulation as death drive, disambiguation as tragedy. Elon Musk reinvents the wheel. Incels and climate grief gurus. Defund the global police!
Issue 37
Transmission
Spring 2020
Coronavirus in the body, coronavirus in the prisons. The undocumented at Ground Zero. “We take issue with core aspects of American foreign policy!” Decarcerate sex offense, socialize heath care. Ari M. Brostoff on Vivian Gornick, Francesco Pacifico on Francesco Pacifico. Fiction by Lynne Tillman, Percival Everett, and Danial Haghighi.
Issue 36
Get Help
Winter 2020
Addicted to Instagram? Nationalize publishing! Nausicaa Renner in DC, Jeremiah Moss in his apartment. What to expect when you’re expecting climate apocalypse. German sheep, Russian bees. In detention and on the border.
Issue 35
Savior Complex
Fall 2019
Abolish private property. I was a teenage telemarketer. Lorelei Lee on sex work and consent. Not-boyfriends, no girlfriends. Pre-mourning diary. Mark Greif reads the Mueller Report. Thinking about design thinking.
Issue 34
Head Case
Spring 2019
Rewriters, runners, and gamblers. Citational vanity and really quite serious mindfucking. Thomas de Monchaux looks at background buildings; Alyssa Battistoni organizes; the editors start a podcast. Andrea Long Chu gets a pussy.
Issue 33
Overtime
Winter 2019
Kicking and screaming in the climate change era. Veterans against war. Mothers against school. Elizabeth Schambelan on Kavanaugh and bro culture. Richard Beck on the Korean peace process. A. S. Hamrah says turn off your phone.
Issue 32
Bad Faith
Fall 2018
We are all op-ed writers now. The Age of ICE. Something fishy about Smolensk. Something funny about bad atrocity writing. Notes on Trap. Notes on Hito Steyerl. Fiction by Lucinda Rosenfeld and Laurie Stone. Drama from David Levine.
Issue 31
Out There
Spring 2018
Gun violence and the war on terror, X-philes and juveniles, climate crisis and housing crisis. Tech workers: organize! Nicholas Dames reads spy novels; Andrea Long Chu watches bad TV; Namara Smith reviews Zadie Smith.
Issue 30
Motherland
Winter 2018
Let them eat cultural capital! On trolling and taboo, TERFs and trans desire. A missing brother, an expired visa. Hollywood longs for the Eighties. Design longs for the Seventies. Fiction by Christine Smallwood and Thomas Bolt.
Issue 29
Bottoms Up
Fall 2017
Delete Uber, delete Lyft. Fall Fiction Special. Nature writing after nature, extractivism after extraction, literary criticism after criticism. Syrian refugees in Bielefeld. A. S. Hamrah on Twin Peaks and Trump.
Issue 28
Half-Life
Spring 2017
The Dems are weak, the left is bleak. Populism: problem or solution? On folklore and frats, Oldchella and the Oscars. Richard Beck on Syria. Fiction by Jenny Zhang and Trevor Shikaze.
Issue 27
Deep End
Winter 2017
Trump Rex. The end of Atlantic City. Literally dead in the UFC. Why live? A. S. Hamrah sees forty films at the NYFF, Tama Janowitz flops, strives, and seethes. Fiction by Thomas Bolt, Beatriz Bracher, and Caleb Crain.
Issue 26
Dirty Work
Fall 2016
Canvassing for Bernie, Hillary Rodham Clinton vs. welfare. Must Rhodes Fall? Why Are We In the Middle East? New Russian political poets. Judith Levine remembers Ginsberg v. New York, Sarah Nicole Prickett reads the Stanford letters, Lizzie Feidelson deep cleans apartments.
Issue 25
Slow Burn
Spring 2016
Feeling the foreign policy Bern. Did Scalia believe in miracles? Shot Bloks and soccer flops, slow movies vs. bad movies. Phil Connors mourns a wilderness, Erin Sheehy reads Straight to Hell, plus fiction by Masande Ntshanga and Rebecca Schiff.
Issue 24
New Age
Winter 2016
Astrology and robots, BDS and black internationalism. Frank Guan listens to Drake; David Samuels listens to weirdos. On heroin and harm reduction, porn fiction by Tony Tulathimutte, plus a symposium on Ukraine.
Issue 23
As If
Fall 2015
Syria before the deluge, Brazil after the dictatorship. Moira Donegan reviews Maggie Nelson, and a dolphin writes to Sylvia Plath. Remember: Just because Seymour Hersh is paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.
Issue 22
Conviction
Spring 2015
Who polices the police? Are millennials real? Philip Connors loses his youth; Dayna Tortorici falls through Ferrante; Brandon Harris slogs through the latest Spike Lee. Fiction by Christine Smallwood.
Issue 21
Throwback
Winter 2015
Don't mourn magazines—organize! Why Syracuse stinks, why everything is speeding up, and why Juiceboxxx is awesssome. Alex Kleeman travels among the Fruitarians, and Nicholas Dames pines for the Seventies. New fiction from Argentina.
Issue 20
Survival
Fall 2014
No care for the caregivers, no luck for the narcos. Should artists get paid? Check your privilege! David Samuels goes to the Grammys. Frank Guan reviews Tao Lin. New fiction from Akhtiorskaya and Zink.
Issue 19
Real Estate
Spring 2014
Putin vs. Ukraine, Microsoft vs. AOL. Jedediah Purdy regrets, Kristin Dombek solves your problems, Nikil Saval redesigns your office. New fiction by Benjamin Kunkel and two scenes by Nell Zink.
Issue 18
Good News
Winter 2014
The NSA would like to connect with you on LinkedIn. Sheila Heti’s diary, clubbing for Christ, and new fiction from Becky Curtis.
Issue 17
The Evil Issue
Fall 2013
Fiction from Norman Rush and Rebecca Curtis, drama from Gregory S. Moss. Moretti reads Middlemarch, Gregory surfs, and Kraus asks what’s after art.
Issue 16
Double Bind
Spring 2013
Against sociology, for cultural revolution! Indians: the next top model minority. Freudenberger reads Munro. Drumming with Colpitts, panda porn with Witt.
Issue 15
Amnesty
Winter 2013
Magazines are dead, long live magazines! Kristin Dombek on sex, drugs, and Ryan Gosling. Nikil Saval on China’s Long ’80s. Feminists remember Shulamith Firestone.
Issue 14
Awkward Age
Summer 2012
Burn your degrees! Demand sex class action. Against big babies at home and imbeciles abroad. Yelena Akhtiorskaya panics in a suitcase.
Issue 13
Machine Politics
Winter 2012
The Intellectual Situation is occupied. James Franco prepares, Sotheby’s sells out. Are computers stupid? Christopher Glazek: Raze the prisons. Benjamin Kunkel: Buzz.
Issue 12
Conversion Experience
Fall 2011
Against intervention, home in Baltimore, obsessed with Gchat. Mark Greif in Stanley Cavell’s classroom and Kent Russell in juggalo country. Helen DeWitt’s new novel.
Issue 11
Dual Power
Spring 2011
A brother in Afghanistan, obscure poetry at Cambridge, crisis in the humanities. Are the Necronauts an avant-garde? Boltanski: “making reality impossible.”
Issue 10
Self-Improvement
Fall 2010
MFA vs. NYC, the masses vs. the elites, the racists vs. the progressives, the vegans vs. the fetuses, California vs. the world. Franzen’s Freedom or death! Sheila Heti: How Should a Person Be?
Issue 9
Bad Money
Spring 2010
Full Employment Now! Octomom, one year later. Internet as social movement, video games as art. Ads nowhere and everywhere. Drug wars in Mexico, parties in Miami, Batuman in Samarkand. Zombies.
Issue 8
Recessional
Fall 2009
A red and green Marxism as the way out of the crisis. Fiction from Mexico’s best untranslated novelist. The history of the New Left Review, adventures in online dating, the rise of the neuronovel, on repressive sentimentalism.
Issue 7
Correction
Fall 2008
Obama as American Gorbachev; Roberto Bolaño canonized. Interviews with David Harvey and an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager. Molly Young takes adderall, Mark Greif eats locally, A. S. Hamrah sees every Iraq war movie.
Issue 6
Mainstream
Winter 2008
The “hype cycle” as the emotional life of capitalism, the death and life of book reviewing. Is global warming a “politics of fear”? Cho Seung-Hui. Gawker. Caleb Crain’s novella, Helen DeWitt’s new novel.
Issue 5
Decivilizing Process
Winter 2007
Technological excess, from email to porn to blogs. Basharat Peer sees torture in Kashmir, Eli S. Evans watches television in Los Angeles. A fable by Benjamin Kunkel, fiction about nuclear proliferation, a report on flying cars.
Issue 4
Reconstruction
Spring 2006
Chad Harbach on global warming. A symposium on “American Writing Today.” Fiction by Rebecca Schiff and John Haskell. Phil Connors on life at the Wall Street Journal. Mark Greif‘s “Afternoon of the Sex Children.”
Issue 3
Reality Principle
Fall 2005
The ’90s bubble. On “Dating.” The con of the “reading crisis.” James Wood on the task of the critic, Walter Benn Michaels on neoliberalism and the novel, Mark Greif on reality TV and Radiohead, and Elif Batuman on Franco Moretti.
Issue 2
Happiness
Winter 2005
The aftermath of Bush’s second election. Theory after the fall. Literary readings: cancel them. “Is J. M. Coetzee afraid of life?” Elif Batuman brings Isaac Babel‘s last living relatives to California. George Scialabba massacres Christopher Hitchens.
Issue 1
Negation
Summer 2004
“It is time to say what you mean.” Raids on the cultural norm. Against Exercise. Fiction by Sam Lipsyte and Benjamin Kunkel. Keith Gessen on the education of Gary Baum.
