Lauren Alwan narrates her family’s migration from Syria to California to explore how people’s evolving identities help gain them a foothold in America and create unintentional tensions across generations.
Arts & Culture
Posted inEditor's Pick
Meltdown of the Phantom Snowflakes
“When I fight back, though, when I continue to write about injustice in the face of the bullying campaigns that are daily life for every female activist I have met, precisely when I feel strongest—that’s when I’m told I’m weak. A crybaby. Special snowflake. Whiner… As politics turn darker, these slurs have become weaponized. Something […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Case Against Christmas
Long after winter has ended, hating on Christmas remains popular sport, as much a holiday tradition as eggnog and overspending.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Longreads Best of 2016: Arts & Culture Writing
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in arts and culture writing.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Surprising History and Ongoing Controversy Behind the True Panama Hat
Darrin DuFord uncovers the history, meaning, and ongoing controversy behind the true “Panama Hat.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Surprising History and Ongoing Controversy Behind the True Panama Hat
Darrin DuFord uncovers the history, meaning, and ongoing controversy behind the true “Panama Hat.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Wellness and Self-Care Became a Sinister Ideology
The gospel of yoga, mindfulness, and organic-everything didn’t come out of nowhere. In a world in which once-cherished social safety nets rapidly disappear, taking care of oneself has become an increasingly privatized—and increasingly expensive—endeavor. At The Baffler, Laurie Penny unpacks the ascendant ideology of self-care, and explains why it’s so hard to find an alternative […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Gidget,’ John Hughes, and the Whitewashing of Jewishness in Pop Culture
This whitewashing of Jewishness out of pop culture is an old, old story, and it isn’t specific to camp movies; it’s true of plenty of other Hollywood representations of American teens, too. The Czech Jew who wrote the novel that was the basis for Gidget (1959) was inspired by his own surfing daughter, Kathy Kohner, who went on […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Monica Lewinsky's Vanity Fair Essay, Now Online
Yes, we’re all connected now. We can tweet a revolution in the streets or chronicle achievements large and small. But we’re also caught in a feedback loop of defame and shame, one in which we have become both perps and victims. We may not have become a crueler society—although it sure feels as if we […]