Second Hand News

In David Adjmi’s new play, a fictional Seventies rock band struggles with life and art.

May 18, 2024

Georgia Erupts

Protestors in Georgia are opposing a “foreign agents” law and defending a liberal-democratic vision for their country.

May 15, 2024

UCLA: Whose Violence?

For two days, UCLA’s pro-Palestine encampment was a site of violent aggression—committed not by the students but against them. 

May 11, 2024

In Harvard Yard

Civil discourse and critical inquiry are not abstract concepts in the encampment. They are active principles.

May 8, 2024

The First and Last of Her Kind

The legal academy has tended to be dismissive of Sandra Day O’Connor, arguing that she had no overarching theory of constitutional interpretation. But the Supreme Court is not a law school faculty workshop. She saw herself as a problem-solver.

November 7, 2019 issue

Hail to the Chief

“John Marshall, while hugely instrumental in assuring for the federal judiciary its limited supervisory role over the legislative branch, exhibited a subservience to the executive branch that continues to haunt us.”

November 22, 2018 issue

Law Without History?

How Justice Scalia’s understanding of the Constitution is wrong

October 23, 2014 issue

Bad Man from Olympus

Oliver Wendell Holmes argued that law should be conceived as a means to the attainment of human ends, and that judges should admit that they decide debatable cases on the basis of policy, not of precedent or abstract principle.

July 13, 1995 issue

How to Understand the Dreyfus Affair

“The Dreyfus Affair demonstrates the fragility of reason, of the rights of man, and indeed of civilized values when a nation feels itself under threat from an external or internal enemy.”

June 10, 2010 issue

Holy Hysteria

“From January until October 1898 a convulsion of anti-Semitism ran through France; no major population center was spared, whether there were Jews living in it or not. There were demonstrations and riots, attacks on synagogues and shops; ‘patriots’ encouraged hotelkeepers to evict Jews from their rooms.”

April 10, 2003 issue

The Lesson of the Dreyfus Case

“Another book about the Dreyfus Affair? What could possibly justify loading another volume upon that already over-crowded shelf? The simplest answer is the timelessness of the story. It is a morality tale.”

February 27, 1986 issue

No End to the Affair

“French politics after 1900 were not the same as before. Perhaps even without the Affair, the new forces—socialists demanding reform, syndicalists calling for direct action, a new right-wing anti-democratic nationalism represented by the Action Française, a renewed movement among the Radicals for the final separation of the Roman Church from the French State—these would have begun to make themselves felt; but there seems little doubt that the Dreyfus experience accelerated these developments.”

May 18, 1967 issue

A View from Cairo

The Egyptian government’s repression of its citizens and the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestine are inextricably linked.

May 12, 2024

Migrant Workers in Their Own Land

After closing its borders to Palestinians employed in critical sectors, Israel’s government has faced a labor shortage—which is being met by Indian migrant workers.

April 21, 2024

In Gaza’s Hospitals

It’s not easy to work under continuous military attack, to wake up and close your eyes to injuries and corpses, to feel helpless to stop it all.

April 19, 2024

The Road to Famine in Gaza

Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are at the brink of famine—a human-made disaster with roots in Israel’s history of using food as a weapon. 

March 30, 2024

Anti-Rent Wars, Then and Now

Amid the 1840s economic crisis, landlords tried to drive out tenants in default. The remarkable movement that rose to challenge evictions can be a model for today’s housing activists.

October 25, 2021

Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis

New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency. The tide of homelessness is only the most visible symptom.

August 17, 2017 issue

Kicked Out in America!

“It is odd that the shortage of low-income housing gets little attention, even among experts on the left. Decent affordable shelter is a primal human need, and its disappearance is one of the most troubling results of growing inequality.”

March 10, 2016 issue

The Rise of the Homeless

“Three years into Ronald Reagan’s first administration, the effects of his social welfare policies—from the elimination of certain nutrition and health programs to the drastic cuts in federal subsidies for the construction of low-income housing—were just being felt in the cities.”

February 16, 1989 issue

Let It Tumble

“I’m drawn always to a certain richness or boldness; I know I’m going to like something if there’s death, sex, and family all in the first fifty pages.”

May 18, 2024

Reading, Reading, Reading

“My gold standard for a novel is whether it’s doing something that only a novel can do, or that a novel can do best.”

May 11, 2024

Dancing on the Page

“How do I capture what happened—and what moved me—during a performance that most of my readers will never have a chance to see?”

May 4, 2024

Storm Over Columbia

“The only reason we didn’t descend into violence that day was that the students remained calm. They were the only adults in the room.”

April 27, 2024

Why Not Memes?

Episode Seven of “The Critic and Her Publics”

May 14, 2024

Into the Cave

Episode Six of “The Critic and Her Publics”

April 9, 2024

A Gender Emergency

Episode Five of “The Critic and Her Publics”

March 26, 2024

The Channeler

Episode Four of “The Critic and Her Publics”

March 12, 2024