Enthusiastic overindulgence in drugs and/or alcohol has characterized the lifestyles of many artists of all persuasions, but not since De Quincy has a writer made what amounts... Read More

There are few social theories on which a Victorian male scholar and a modern feminist would agree, but the suppression of women in Ancient Greece is one of them. According to... Read More

Goddesses have always formed a pervasive and important aspect of Indian Buddhism, but until recently, they have received little in-depth attention from academics. The author... Read More

“What wisteria and alcohol are to Faulkner, and fishing and bullfights to Hemingway, rudeness is to Roth,” writes the author. “It seems to be everywhere in his books—a... Read More

“Trying to get an education at Princeton is like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hydrant,” observed a student in 1994. Such high praise for the intellectual... Read More

“The task of psychoanalysis is not so much to undo forgetting, but to put poetry back into the mind,” writes the author, a novelist, biographer of Sylvia Plath, professor of... Read More

Women face inequality in the workplace and at home. Their salaries are lower, the value of their family-oriented work is often disregarded, and they are likely to have less in... Read More

Writing about storytelling is itself a form of storytelling. Acknowledging this, and granting that “anyone who writes about revising stories must be acutely conscious that the... Read More

Who was Cleopatra, really? An intellectual stateswoman? An alluring seductress? A living deity? A greedy manipulator? An incestuous hedonist? Cleopatra VII, daughter of the line... Read More

Considering Frieseke’s extensive and superb oeuvre of Impressionist paintings, it is surprising that he is so little known, especially in his native United States. A major... Read More

A statuesque woman draped in midnight blue velvet stands and stretches in front of her embroidery table, surrounded by rich colors and varying textures—the fabric of her... Read More

For those of us who still don’t “get” the vital connection between preservation of biodiversity and the continued well-being of human beings on the planet, LIFE IN THE... Read More