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In this edition of Liberties ...
In this edition of Liberties ...
In this edition of Liberties ...
June 8, 2026
In loving memory of Irwin Berl Nadler, 1952-2023 There are moments — small, almost absurd moments — when one realizes that one has crossed a threshold, a personal, religious, historical, or intellectual threshold — without quite noticing the warning sign on the door, or even the door. Mine came in the form of an...
Read MoreJune 1, 2026
I This year’s Berlin International Film Festival opened on a rare sunny winter’s day in the German capital. In the early afternoon of February 12, the international jury, led by its president Wim Wenders, filed into the Grand Hyatt for the opening press conference. Film festival veterans are used to these tedious rituals, the lazy...
Read MoreMay 25, 2026
Yasujirō Ozu is from a different time and place in the sense that in the place where he is from, time does not behave the way our time does. Shigehiko Hasumi, the Japanese literary and film critic and Flaubert scholar (who drew on the methods of the Cahiers du Cinema critics of the ‘50s in...
Read MoreMay 18, 2026
What do we want from our idols? Devotion to their ideals, of course, a keen sense of self-mythos, preferably an exalted capacity to live as they preach. On a cursory glance, Jack Kerouac appears to meet these standards. The Buddhist Years, a collection of Kerouac’s previously unpublished drafts, diary entries, poems, and scribbles, excavating his...
Read MoreMay 11, 2026
How many great women painters have been honored by history? In 1948, the writer Edward James claimed there were just seven female masters: Artemisia Gentileschi, Rosalba Carriera, Elisabeth Vigée le Brun, Angelica Kaufmann, Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassatt, and Berthe Morisot. It was a relatively new phenomenon to have a successful woman artist, he wrote, thanks...
Read MoreMay 4, 2026
The Silicon Valley elites funding the New Right believe it is much more difficult to be cynically correct than idealistically wrong. This is central to the worldview of figures such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Marc Andreessen. They believe it is their lot in life to possess superior judgement that enables them to pierce...
Read MoreApril 27, 2026
Juan spoke Spanish into his earpiece, just a murmur of entonces and biens. He had folded Lexus napkins into the pockets behind the front seats so riders could see the Lexus logo. A business card, Juan’s Construction Services, had been taped to the dashboard. I’m not sure whether he used his Uber business to advertise...
Read MoreApril 20, 2026
I: Safaa and a Design from the Heart of Survival In the visual grammar of Safaa, a 24-year-old graphic designer from Gaza, “contrast” is not merely a tool for aesthetic clarity; it is the vital tension between the ash of her reality and the colors of her resilience. Safaa does not introduce herself with a...
Read MoreApril 13, 2026
I Saint Fillan’s left arm glowed in the dark, the better to read Scripture in his cave. He was born in Munster with a stone in his mouth. When his father Feriach, son of Cellach Cualann, King of Leinster saw the stone, he threw young Fillan in a lake. Saved by a passing priest, Fillan...
Read MoreApril 6, 2026
In March of last year, about six weeks after Donald Trump returned to the White House, I traveled to Washington for a meeting of American education scholars. The opening panel focused — appropriately enough — on Trump’s threats to university funding, free speech on campus, and more. Then it was time for questions, and I...
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