Tag Archives: The New Yorker Magazine

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – August 14, 2023

People shop at a farmers market in the middle of a city.

The New Yorker – August 14, 2023 issue: The cover features Victoria Tentler-Krylov’s “Peak Season”….

The Protests Inside Iran’s Girls’ Schools

A girl defiantly stands on a classroom chair without a head scarf.
Illustration by Adams Carvalho

From the start, women were at the center of the demonstrations that swept Iran last year. Schoolgirls emerged as an unexpected source of defiant energy.

By Azadeh Moaveni

One morning this past winter, the students at a girls’ high school in Tehran were told that education officials would arrive that week to inspect their classrooms and check compliance with the school’s dress code: specifically, the wearing of the maghnaeh, a hooded veil that became a requirement for schoolgirls in the years after the Iranian Revolution. During lunch, a group of students gathered in the schoolyard. A thirteen-year-old in the seventh grade, whom I’ll call Nina, pressed in to hear what was being said. At the time, mass protests against the government were raging across the country; refusing to wear the veil had become a symbol of the movement. An older girl told the others that it was time for them to join together and make a stand.

How Sudan Archives Became the Violin’s Domme

Sudan Archives photographed by Djeneba Aduayom.

The twenty-nine-year-old musician pursues technical, rather than emotional, manipulation with her instrument. She can coax from it the sounds of an accordion, a drum, or a string orchestra.

By Doreen St. Félix

“Do you listen to Sudan Archives?” Most of the time, but not every time, the response to this question is one of confusion. How can one listen to the archives of a country? Sudan Archives is, in fact, a twenty-nine-year-old musician—a singer, rapper, producer, arranger, lyricist, and violinist. She creates a “fiddle-punk sound,” as she describes it, that blends folk, ambient, soul, house, and whatever other tradition she feels is available for the taking. Sudan (the name that her colleagues, her fans, and, increasingly, her intimates call her) begins composing by striking a riff on one of her five violins, which she uses differently from most other American producers. 

What Should You Do with an Oil Fortune?

Leah HuntHendrix photographed by Platon.

The Hunt family owns one of the largest private oil companies in the country. Leah Hunt-Hendrix funds social movements that want to end the use of fossil fuels.

By Andrew Marantz

Let’s say you were born into a legacy that is, you have come to believe, ruining the world. What can you do? You could be paralyzed with guilt. You could run away from your legacy, turn inward, cultivate your garden. If you have a lot of money, you could give it away a bit at a time—enough to assuage your conscience, and your annual tax burden, but not enough to hamper your life style—and only to causes (libraries, museums, one or both political parties) that would not make anyone close to you too uncomfortable. Or you could just give it all away—to a blind trust, to the first person you pass on the sidewalk—which would be admirable: a grand gesture of renunciation in exchange for moral purity. But, if you believe that the world is being ruined by structural causes, you will have done little to challenge those structures.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – August 7, 2023

A person who is wearing a bathing suit and a hat in a pool with lush greenery around them.

The New Yorker – August 7, 2023 issue: On the cover is Gayle Kabaker’s “In The Swim of Things”…

Inside the Wagner Group’s Armed Uprising

A photo collage of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian soldiers.

How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private military company went from fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine to staging a mutiny at home.

By Joshua Yaffa

Revisiting My Rastafari Childhood

Photo collage of Safiya Sinclair's family.

Babylon was everything forbidden, and looming all around us—and my father tried to protect us from it at all costs.

By Safiya Sinclair

How an Amateur Diver Became a True-Crime Sensation

Two scuba divers approaching a car underwater.

As the founder of Adventures with Purpose, Jared Leisek carved a lucrative niche in the YouTube sleuthing community. Then the sleuths came for him, Rachel Monroe writes.

By Rachel Monroe

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – July 31, 2023

A series of images of the Earth inside a microwave getting redder with each year.
“Recipe for Disaster,” by Christoph Niemann.

The New Yorker – July 31, 2023 issue: The ‘rich and famous’ above the law, a small-town newspaper lands ‘Big Stories’, how Larry Gagosian reshaped the art world, and more…

How Alex Spiro Keeps the Rich and Famous Above the Law

Alex Spiro stands holding a folder under one arm and points at something out of the frame.

With a common touch that appeals to juries and a client list that includes Elon Musk, Jay-Z, and Megan Thee Stallion, he’s on a winning streak that makes his rivals seethe.

By Sheelah Kolhatkar

From the issue of July 31, 2023

In the summer of 2018, four years before he bought Twitter, the entrepreneur Elon Musk was facing legal consequences for two of his more reckless forays on the social-media platform. A boys’ soccer team in Thailand had been trapped in a flooded cave for more than two weeks, and a caver involved in the rescue said on CNN that a bespoke submarine Musk had sent to save the children was a “PR stunt.” Infuriated, Musk told his twenty-two million Twitter followers, without basis in fact, that the caver, Vernon Unsworth, was a “pedo guy.” The tweet went viral, and Unsworth’s attorney threatened to sue Musk for defamation.

How Larry Gagosian Reshaped the Art World

Larry Gagosian stands in front of art by Richard Prince.

The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them.

By Patrick Radden Keefe

It was the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend on Further Lane, the best street in Amagansett, the best town in the Hamptons, and the art dealer Larry Gagosian was bumming around his eleven-thousand-square-foot modernist beach mansion, looking pretty relaxed for a man who, the next day, would host a party for a hundred and forty people. A pair of French bulldogs, Baby and Humphrey, waddled about, and Gagosian’s butler, Eddie, a slim man with a ponytail and an air of informal professionalism, handed him a sparkling water. 

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – July 24, 2023

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The New Yorker – July 24, 2023 issue: Emily Nussbaum on the Nashville underground, Benjamin Wallace-Wells on Gretchen Whitmer, Anthony Lane on “Mission: Impossible,” and more.

Country Music’s Culture Wars and the Remaking of Nashville

A man in a cowboy had stands amid a group of women in cowgirl hats at NashVegas.

Tennessee’s government has turned hard red, but a new set of outlaw songwriters is challenging Music City’s conservative ways—and ruling bro-country sound.

By Emily Nussbaum

On March 20th, at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, a block from the honky-tonks of Lower Broadway, Hayley Williams, the lead singer of the pop-punk band Paramore, strummed a country-music rhythm on her guitar. A drag queen in a ketchup-red wig and gold lamé boots bounded onstage. The two began singing in harmony, rehearsing a twangy, raucous cover of Deana Carter’s playful 1995 feminist anthem “Did I Shave My Legs for This?”—a twist on a Nashville classic, remade for the moment.

How Gretchen Whitmer Made Michigan a Democratic Stronghold

Gretchen Whitmer photographed by Paola Kudacki.

The Governor’s strategy for revitalizing her state has two parts: to grow, Michigan needs young people; to draw young people, it needs to have the social policies they want.

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – July 10, 2023

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The New Yorker – July 10 & 17, 2023 issue:

On Killing Charles Dickens

A man with a top hat hovering over London.

I did everything I could to avoid writing my historical novel. When I finally started “The Fraud,” one principle was clear: no Dickens.
By Zadie Smith

For the first thirty years of my life, I lived within a one-mile radius of Willesden Green Tube Station. It’s true I went to college—I even moved to East London for a bit—but such interludes were brief. I soon returned to my little corner of North West London. Then suddenly, quite abruptly, I left not just the city but England itself. First for Rome, then Boston, and then my beloved New York, where I stayed ten years. When friends asked why I’d left the country, I’d sometimes answer with a joke: Because I don’t want to write a historical novel. Perhaps it was an in-joke: only other English novelists really understood what I meant by it. And there were other, more obvious reasons.

The Tyranny of the Tale

Scheherazade behind a colonnade of pens.

We’re told that story will set us free. But what if a narrative frame is also a cage?

By Parul Sehgal

After a millennium, she remains the hardest-working woman in literature. It was not enough to be saddled with a husband who had the nasty habit of marrying and murdering a new virgin every day to assure himself of spousal fidelity. Nor was it enough to produce a series of nested stories under such deadlines (truly, I complain too much), stories so prickly and tantalizing that the king postponed her murder every night to wait for the next installment. That’s to say nothing of the entirely forgotten three children she bore over those thousand and one nights. Who recalls that there was always a new baby in Scheherazade’s arms?

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – July 3, 2023

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The New Yorker – July 3, 2023 issue: For Independence Day, the artist Kadir Nelson chose to portray a young woman who, though she may be standing in the midst of the festivities, is anchored in her own private world.

The Divine Comedy of Roman Emperors’ Last Words

A statue of a man atop a walking eagle.

In the end, godlike aspirations often met with all too human final moments.

By Mary Beard

One of the funniest works of Roman literature to survive—and the only one that has ever made me laugh out loud—is a skit, written by the philosopher Seneca, about the Emperor Claudius’ adventures on his way to Mt. Olympus after his death. Titled “Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii” (“The ‘Pumpkinification’ of the Deified Claudius”), it recounts how the Roman Senate declared that the dead Emperor was now a god, complete with his own temple, priests, and official rites of worship. The deification of emperors was fairly standard practice at the time, and the spoof claimed to lift the lid on what really happened during the process.

How Plastics Are Poisoning Us

An outline of a woman made out of plastic beads and trash

They both release and attract toxic chemicals, and appear everywhere from human placentas to chasms thirty-six thousand feet beneath the sea. Will we ever be rid of them?

By Elizabeth Kolbert

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 26, 2023

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The New Yorker – June 19, 2023 issue: Edward Steed’s “A Loveliness of Ladybugs” – In his cover for the June 26, 2023, issue, Ed Steed heralds summer, depicting some colorful Coccinellidae—the scientific term for the family of small beetles colloquially known as the ladybug, a swarm of which is collectively called a loveliness. I talked to the artist about the joy of painting, an affection for the little things, and the luck of the ladybugs.

What Can We Do About Pandemic-Related Learning Loss?

Pages falling from a calendar onto a student working at a desk.

Remote school was devastating for many students. In Richmond, Virginia, a plan to switch to a year-round calendar brought promise and pushback.

By Alec MacGillis

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 19, 2023

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The New Yorker – June 19, 2023 issue: Roz Chast’s “Fireworks Megastore”. The artist discusses stumbling across surprises while shopping, and rebelling against efficiency.

How Dowries Are Fueling a Femicide Epidemic

Top panel shows a red sunset bottom panel is a woman with her hand over her chest and a man's hands on her shoulder

Every year in India, many thousands are killed in marriage-payment disputes. Why does this war on women persist?

By Manvir Singh

In September 21, 2021, my mother sent a message to my extended family’s WhatsApp group: “Neeti had a heart attack and suddenly passed away—too tragic!” Neeti was a daughter of her sister, and someone I’d known all my life. But my cousin and I inhabited different worlds. I was born and raised in suburban New Jersey; she was a lifelong Delhiite. To me, Neeti and her identical twin, Preeti, exuded an urban glamour. At weddings, they sported chic, oversized sunglasses and matching, pastel-colored Punjabi-style outfits. Their faces looked a lot like my mom’s: long, with prominent cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes.

Biden’s Dilemma at the Border

America’s broken immigration system has spawned a national fight, but Congress lacks the political will to fix it.

Two people wear fatigues shown from the waistdown.

By Dexter Filkins

Earlier this year, in a helicopter above the Mexican border, a team of Texas state troopers searched for people crossing into the United States. As they flew over a neighborhood west of El Paso, the radio crackled with the voices of Border Patrol agents on the ground below, calling out migrants who were evading them.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 12, 2023

Sasha Velours “The Look of Pride”
Art by Sasha Velour

The New Yorker – June 12, 2023 issue: The artist behind the cover for the June 12, 2023, issue, Sasha Velour, is a gender-fluid drag queen, author, television and theatre performer, and visual artist. In 2017, she was named the winner of the ninth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” 

How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Swallowed Hollywood

Many superheroes breaking through the word Hollywood

Robert Redford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Rudd, and Angela Bassett now disappear into movies whose plots can come down to “Keep glowy thing away from bad guy.”

By Michael Schulman

The Writer Who Insists He Knew Tennessee Williams

An illustrated portrait of James Grissom writing on a notepad. From his pen emanates a cloud in which we see a scene...

James Grissom says that he met the playwright and his famous muses, and quoted them extensively in his work. Not everyone believes him.


By Helen Shaw

How a Fringe Legal Theory Became a Threat to Democracy

A seesaw with a collection of colorful US States on one side and the shape of the entire United States on the other. The...

Lawyers tried to use the independent-state-legislature theory to sway the outcomes of the 2000 and 2020 elections. What if it were to become the law of the land?

By Andrew Marantz

An extreme version of the theory could give state legislatures the power to award Electoral College votes however they see fit. Illustrations by Golden Cosmos

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 5, 2023

Art by Masha Titova

The New Yorker – June 5, 2023 issue: Masha Titova’s “The Music of Art”. The magazine publishes its first synesthetic, collaborative, and interactive cover. By Françoise Mouly.

The Case For and Against Ed Sheeran

The pop singer’s trial for copyright infringement of Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend’s “Let’s Get It On” highlights how hard it is to draw the property lines of pop.

By John Seabrook

The Trials and Triumphs of Writing While Woman

An illustration of two women's heads facing one another with a pen between them.

From Mary Wollstonecraft to Toni Morrison, getting a start meant starting over.

By Lauren Michele Jackson

When the critic Joanna Biggs was thirty-two, her mother, still in her fifties, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. “Everything wobbled,” she recalls. Biggs was married but not sure she wanted to be, suddenly distrustful of the neat, conventional course—marriage, kids, burbs—plotted out since she met her husband, at nineteen. It was as though the disease’s rending of a maternal bond had severed her contract with the prescribed feminine itinerary. Soon enough, she and her husband were seeing other people; then he moved out, and she began making pilgrimages to visit Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave.