In the winter of 1975, a quiet young woman from Lexington, Kentucky, met her Ph.D. adviser in Brown University’s writing program for a series of unsatisfactory tutorials about an ambitious project of hers that had yet to fully reveal itself. The encounters were strange enough that her adviser still recalled them in an interview a quarter-century later: “I was doing all the talking, and she would sit rigidly, just bobbing her head in a regal manner. Yet there was a kind of arrogance to her. Perhaps it was the arrogance of an artist fiercely committed to a vision, but I also sensed a bottled-up black rage.” There’s nothing unusual about a young writer seething at the world, especially in the 1970s, when protests and bad attitudes about race, war, and university curricula were so de rigueur that they may as well have been taught at orientation. Likelier than not, his student sensed her (white) adviser’s judgment and withdrew in response—and didn’t think he had much to offer, anyway. While her natural range was virtuosic, his work consisted primarily of a host of popular paperbacks and magazine stories whose titles, including Dormitory Women and “Up the Down Coed,” accurately convey their subjects and sensibilities.
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Denne historien er fra September 2020-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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You Are Going to Die - Oliver Burkeman has become an unlikely self-help guru by reminding everyone of their mortality.
"The average human lifespan," Oliver Burkeman begins his 2021 megabest seller, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, "is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short." In that relatively brief period, he does not want you to maximize your output at work or optimize your leisure activities for supreme enjoyment. He does not want you to wake up at 5 a.m. or block out your schedule in a strictly labeled timeline.
Washington's Nightmare - Donald Trump is the tyrant the first president feared.
Last November, during a symposium at Mount Vernon on democracy, John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general who served as Donald Trump's second chief of staff, spoke about George Washington's historic accomplishments— his leadership and victory in the Revolutionary War, his vision of what an American president should be. And then Kelly offered a simple, three-word summary of Washington's most important contribution to the nation he liberated.
The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books - To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University's required greatbooks course, since 1988. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading, College kids have never read everything they're assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames's students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem.
What Zoya Sees
Long a fearless critic of Israeli society, since October 7 Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi has made wrenching portraits of her nation's sufferingand become a target of protest.
Malcolm Gladwell, Meet Mark Zuckerberg
The writer’ insistence on ignoring the web is an even bigger blind spot today than it was when The Tipping Point came out.
Alan Hollinghurst's Lost England
In his new novel, the present isnt much better than the past—and its a lot less sexy.
Scent of a Man
In a new memoir, Al Pacino promises to reveal the person behind the actor. But is he holding something back?
CATCHING THE CARJACKERS
ON THE ROAD WITH AN ELITE POLICE UNIT AS IT COMBATS A CRIME WAVE
THE RIGHT-WING PLAN TO MAKE EVERYONE AN INFORMANT
In Texas and elsewhere, new laws and policies have encouraged neighbors to report neighbors to the government.
The Playwright in the Age of AI
In his new play, McNeal, Ayad Akhtar confronts, and subverts, the idea that artificial intelligence threatens human ingenuity.