Roundtable
Opinions and analysis from Lapham’s Quarterly writers and editors.
August 2, 2025
April 18, 2012
Post Secrets
The young women of old New York had their mail monitored by parents and servants until they could visit that epistolary den of vice, the post office.
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April 03, 2012
The Myth of the Fourth Estate
We should think of reading the paper and watching the news as acts belonging to the world of ritual as much as the commerce of information.
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March 22, 2012
Living in the Margins
In medieval marginalia, you might find complaining monks, a nun breastfeeding a monkey, and sexual wordplay. Oh, and doodles, lots of doodles.
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December 23, 2011
Predicting Their Own Demise
We can say what we want about the future of reading, but perhaps we ought to let the novel speak for itself.
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December 22, 2011
The Patron Saint of Dark Days
The shortest day of the year can drive anyone a little crazy, including Vincent Van Gogh.
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November 01, 2011
The Zombie Apocalypse of Daniel Defoe
The Great Plague of London and narratives of the undead.
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October 28, 2011
Heraclitus in Guatemala
D. Graham Burnett recounts an unlikely conversation he had with his barber about the philosophy of history.
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Monumental Mistakes
2023:
Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.
c. 1850:
Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.
Revolutionary Lovebirds
2023:
Writers on strike search for romance at the picket line.
c. 1945:
Young communists engage in party matchmaking.