Essay Music The Emperor’s New Music By Xiaofei Tian The high stakes of popular music in ancient China. More
Essay Book of Nature And Such Small Deer By Garret Keizer A writer struggles to defend his trees from a pack of hungry deer—“an episode of great vexation and buffoonery.” More
Essay Death Mournful Creatures By Virginia Morell Humans may be the only animals who understand our mortality, but when it comes to grieving, we are not so unique. More
Essay Democracy In the People’s House There Are Many Mansions By Thomas Geoghegan Why we need more DIY government. More
Essay Spies Happy All the Time By Lynn Stuart Parramore As biometric tracking takes over the modern workplace, the old game of labor surveillance is finding new forms. More
Essay Sports & Games Blossom and Fade By John Crowley Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game is an experience with the pathos and wonder of all games—the game that is the universe. More
Essay Animals How to Be a Stuffed Animal By Frances Stonor Saunders The American Museum of Natural History, Teddy Roosevelt, and the importance of taxidermy. More
Essay Memory The Sensitive Plant By Virginia Morell The two-hundred-year search for botanical memory. More
Essay Philanthropy Philanthropy in the End Times By Curtis White The state of giving at the impossible intersection of capitalism, morality, and the natural world. More
