In Why Trilling Matters, from Yale University Press’s Why X Matters Series, Adam Kirsch makes a compelling argument for why mid-century American literary critic Lionel Trilling might matter thirty-six years after his death. Yet the importance of a literary critic rests on the more fundamental question of the importance of
William Ian Miller is 65 years old. Yet, rather than trying to conceal his age—a practice that has grown commonplace in our age of cosmetic surgery—he has written a book about it. Losing It: In which an Aging Professor laments his shrinking Brain, new from Yale University Press this fall,
Today, The Metropolitan Museum of Art reopens a suite of fifteen galleries devoted to Islamic Art, after an eight year renovation project. The new space will display 1,200 works of art from Arab lands, Turkey, Iran, Central, and South Asia, among them the celebrated Emperor’s Carpet, and the Damascus Room,
For last month’s contest inspired by the new illustrated edition of E.H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, we asked you to answer five questions, the last one of which read, “Who found enlightenment under a fig tree?” As many of you were able to tell us, the answer
Sarah Underwood— When I interned at Yale University Press this summer, the other interns and I occasionally joked about how many more young women than men were participating in the program. We knew it was not from a lack of equal opportunity, and I guess we should not have been
After his acclaimed biographies of Livingstone and of Stanley, Tim Jeal explains what still draws him to Africa and the deeds of the great Victorian explorers, who feature in Explorers of the Nile, his definitive account of the contest to discover the Nile’s source. To be published November 1, this
If you were lucky enough to wander through Beijing’s 798 District, you would come face to face with some of the most fresh, daring work produced by China’s up-and-coming artists. In the past decade China’s contemporary art scene has exploded, captivating art collectors and galleries around the world. Ai Weiwei,
Ivan Lett— Here in New Haven, the memory of La Amistad and its historic court trial pervades the memory of our coastline. Popular recreations of the slave ship’s story, such as the 1997 Spielberg film or the ship replica at Mystic Seaport, remind us of the horrors of slavery and
“Shall I receive the gift?” “Shall I be reconciled with my son?” “Shall I be poisoned?” These questions were all found in an oracle book created in the late third century B.C., as part of an exhaustive numbered list of queries one might pose. Their answers could be found by