Issue January 16, 2020 - The New York Review of Books (2025)

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IN THIS ISSUEChicagoNightmares in the Dream Sanctuary War and the Animated Film Donna Kornhaber “Extraordinarily engaging, psychologically penetrating, and intellectually absorbing. In short, this is a new classic of topical film studies and the literature of art and war.”—Booklist Cloth $35.00 The Ruins Lesson Meaning and Material in Western Culture Susan Stewart “The book explores the varied, volatile forms in which we imagine and remember and care for, or fail to care for, the made and given world. That care shows itself in Stewart’s own quality of attention, the range of her curiosity, the depth of her scholarship, the risk of her thought.”—Kenneth Gross, University of Rochester Cloth $35.00 Dark Lens Imaging Germany, 1945 Françoise Meltzer “Meltzer’s Dark Lens is based around a couple of dozen snaps which her mother took of…2 min

IN THIS ISSUEChicagoNightmares in the Dream SanctuaryWar and the Animated FilmDonna Kornhaber“Extraordinarily engaging, psychologically penetrating, and intellectually absorbing. In short, this is a new classic of topical film studies and the literature of art and war.”—BooklistCloth $35.00The Ruins LessonMeaning and Material in Western CultureSusan Stewart“The book explores the varied, volatile forms in which we imagine and remember and care for, or fail to care for, the made and given world. That care shows itself in Stewart’s own quality of attention, the range of her curiosity, the depth of her scholarship, the risk of her thought.”—Kenneth Gross, University of RochesterCloth $35.00Dark LensImaging Germany, 1945Françoise Meltzer“Meltzer’s Dark Lens is based around a couple of dozen snaps which her mother took of ruined German cities immediately after the war. This personal angle whets the reader’s…2 min

IN THIS ISSUECONTRIBUTORSDAVID W. BLIGHT is Sterling Professor of American History at Yale. His biography of Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom, received the Pulitzer Prize for history. PETER BROOKS has written several books on narrative and the novel, including Reading for the Plot. A new book, Balzac’s Lives, will be published next fall. He is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Yale. ROBYN CRESWELL is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale. He is the author of City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernism in Beirut. FREEMAN DYSON is Professor of Physics Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. MERVE EMRE is Associate Professor of English Literature at Oxford and a Fellow of Worcester College. Her latest book is The Ferrante Letters: An Exercise in Collective Thinking. NOAH FELDMAN is the…2 min

IN THIS ISSUEThe Designated MournerMourning becomes Joe Biden. “I have found over the years,” he writes in his recent best-selling memoir Promise Me, Dad, “that, although it brought back my own vivid memories of sad times, my presence almost always brought some solace to people who have suffered sudden and unexpected loss.… When I talk to people in mourning, they know I speak from experience.” The most moving thing in that book is not even Biden’s restrained and heartbreaking account of the slow death of his beloved son Beau. It is the two brief appearances of Wei Tang Liu, whose son, Wenjian Liu, was one of two police officers murdered in New York City on the Saturday before Christmas 2014. Biden visited the family home in Brooklyn to pay his respects. The father, an…20 min

IN THIS ISSUECONTRIBUTORSDAVID W. BLIGHT is Sterling Professor of American History at Yale. His biography of Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom, received the Pulitzer Prize for history.PETER BROOKS has written several books on narrative and the novel, including Reading for the Plot. A new book, Balzac’s Lives, will be published next fall. He is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Yale.ROBYN CRESWELL is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale. He is the author of City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernism in Beirut.FREEMAN DYSON is Professor of Physics Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.MERVE EMRE is Associate Professor of English Literature at Oxford and a Fellow of Worcester College. Her latest book is The Ferrante Letters: An Exercise in Collective Thinking.NOAH FELDMAN is the Felix Frankfurter Professor at Harvard…2 min

Issue January 16, 2020 - The New York Review of Books (2025)

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