America’s centennial in 1876 was celebrated with a grand exhibition that projected an image of national unity and inventiveness in the anxious aftermath of civil war and recession.
Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America’s Future by Fergus M. Bordewich
Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism examines how Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, by selling a vision of the future that very few people would want to inhabit.
Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff
A loss of public faith in higher education and and what it represents for the larger community. This issue also features a Symposium on Aspects of 1776 in commemoration of America at 250.
The University’s Never-Ending Crisis
Higher education has dealt with epistemic revolution before.
Harryette Mullen on the Art of Poetry: “I knew I would exhaust myself as subject matter, but I could take something and turn it upside down, inside out, add a few doodads, and that way it would become inexhaustible.”
Yan Lianke on the Art of Fiction: “I personally didn’t think there was anything anti-war in writing about how an individual might be terrified of battle. I was really writing about my own fear.”
Prose by Lucy Ellmann, Chad Fore, Daisy Hildyard, Chigozie Obioma, Daniel Saldaña París, and Shuang Xuetao.
Poetry by Zain Baweja, Jean Day, Hannah Piette, Frederick Seidel, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, Katana Smith, and Tran Hang My.
Art by Hadi Falapishi, Andrew Kuo, and Hannah Tishkoff; cover by Alex Da Corte.