The Baffler

BadRx | Jess McAllen From PBMs to coupon aggregators, the middlemen of medicine are racking in the cash—at the expense of patients.

Sure, coupon aggregators can make drugs more affordable when insurance won’t cover them. But that’s just in the short term. Zoom out, and things become more complicated.

Bringing Up Babies | Nina Pasquini IVF in the United States is widely supported and very common. It has antiabortion conservatives in a tizzy.

On the campaign trail, Trump made big promises about expanding IVF access. Now he’s walking that back. Late last year, Nina Pasquini wrote about the right’s convoluted relationship with fertility treatments.

The Long Con | Rick Perlstein Mitt Romney lies to be loved.

Republicans have cultivated easy marks as their voting base for >3 generations. I’ll probably never stop linking to @rickperlstein.bsky.social ‘s piece in The Baffler

The Global Supply Chain is Up for Grabs Actually existing capitalism has always relied on the globally uneven cheapening of labor and nature.

From the Archives: @triofrancos.bsky.social traces the global supply chains of extractive capitalism, which are both sites of domination—and possibility.

More Than a Feeling | Stephanie Burt Gods—especially Pan—seek worshippers; most gods want more than one.

It’s the classic adolescent dilemma: Am I having a grand epiphany or a mental breakdown? Panic attacks or visitations from time-warping, space-shredding divinity? In Michael Clune’s new novel, the answer may be “all of the above.”

Blonde Ambition | Philippa Snow Pamela Anderson spins the creation of female desirability into a magic trick.

In our Vegas issue, Philippa Snow described the many ambitious reinventions of Pamela Anderson.

More Than a Feeling | Stephanie Burt Gods—especially Pan—seek worshippers; most gods want more than one.

If the first half of Michael Clune’s “Pan” gestures toward the modernist insight, the second half feels a bit more like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” meets “I Know What You Did Last Summer”—which is a little less fun than it sounds.

Down by the Schoolyard | Daniel Felsenthal At Brooklyn’s Amant, a group show examines the complexities of modern-day education—and the parallels between campus and prison.

There is plenty of art about education, but a new group show in Brooklyn concentrates on people, cutting against the dehumanizing turn in schooling—and, in doing so, frames education itself as art.

Down by the Schoolyard | Daniel Felsenthal At Brooklyn’s Amant, a group show examines the complexities of modern-day education—and the parallels between campus and prison.

“American education’s present is a corrupted circumstance, not a necessary evil, a knowledge that allows the brave and persistent to push for change.”

Heat Wave | Eric Klinenberg What Chicago needed was a social autopsy, a study of the institutions and relationships that permitted this catastrophe.

From the Archives: Eric Klinenberg performs a social autopsy on Chicago following a 1995 heat wave that left 739 dead, uncovering the political and economic conditions that made it the deadliest heat wave in U.S. history to that point.

Here’s a personal, precise, anger-making analysis that examines a group show as clues and cues that unravel the terror and sadness of surveillance-state education. I can’t recall "art writing” quite like this. Bravo Daniel, and Baffler.

More Than a Feeling | Stephanie Burt Gods—especially Pan—seek worshippers; most gods want more than one.

“Clune has written a novel about feeling trapped, at fifteen and sixteen, in your own solitary consciousness.”

Heat Wave | Eric Klinenberg What Chicago needed was a social autopsy, a study of the institutions and relationships that permitted this catastrophe.

It’s been thirty years since a deadly heat wave struck Chicago, killing more than 700 people—most of them poor and elderly. They died not just from the extreme weather, but as the result of budget cuts and extreme inequality.

Down by the Schoolyard | Daniel Felsenthal At Brooklyn’s Amant, a group show examines the complexities of modern-day education—and the parallels between campus and prison.

Surveillance doesn’t make students safer—yet students are watched relentlessly, and campuses have become testing grounds for assaults on personal liberty. @dfelsenthal.bsky.social reviews a new show that asks: Under such circumstances, how to go on educating?

BadRx | Jess McAllen From PBMs to coupon aggregators, the middlemen of medicine are racking in the cash—at the expense of patients.

Yes, coupon aggregators can make drugs more affordable when insurance won’t cover them. But that’s just in the short term. Zoom out, and things become more complicated.

BadRx | Jess McAllen From PBMs to coupon aggregators, the middlemen of medicine are racking in the cash—at the expense of patients.

“You talk to employers, you talk to manufacturers, everybody knows the PBMs are ripping them off. They just don’t know how.”

More Than a Feeling | Stephanie Burt Gods—especially Pan—seek worshippers; most gods want more than one.

In Michael Clune’s first novel, affliction becomes revelation. @notquitehydepark.bsky.social reviews “Pan,” a coming-of-age tale set in the Illinois exurbs amid a budding cult.

"The ways we respond to these forces of nature—personally, socially, and politically—reveal who we are and what we value today."

This 2002 article, and the related book, were among many prods toward public health I experienced.

Reflections from the social autopsy are every bit as important today.

Down by the Schoolyard | Daniel Felsenthal At Brooklyn’s Amant, a group show examines the complexities of modern-day education—and the parallels between campus and prison.

For @thebaffler.com, I wrote about the surveillance state and education in the U.S., and how an incisive group art show in Brooklyn is affectionately, indignantly, sorrowfully taking stock of education’s history and status quo thebaffler.com/latest/down-...

As someone who cannot put an AC unit of any sort (including portable) in my apt w/out shorting out the entire building due to cheap wiring put in during a refurb, I'm feeling this more and more today. Ain't landlords swell?

The Executioner | Daisuke Shen Which one was the executioner? For there must be a sense of justice, a purpose. One who is good, the other bad.

The man she loved and the executioner were old friends from school—maybe even twins. What to prepare when he comes over for dinner? Read new fiction from Daisuke Shen on our site now.

Down by the Schoolyard | Daniel Felsenthal At Brooklyn’s Amant, a group show examines the complexities of modern-day education—and the parallels between campus and prison.

At a time when public schooling is under attack, a group show considers how we educate our students—and how students can fight for their education. Daniel Felsenthal reviews a recent exhibition in Brooklyn, on view through August 17.

Heat Wave | Eric Klinenberg What Chicago needed was a social autopsy, a study of the institutions and relationships that permitted this catastrophe.

“How was such a grotesque tragedy possible in the flourishing city? Who were these people? Why had no one noticed the victims when they were still alive?” In 2002, Eric Klinenberg wrote about the 1995 Chicago heat wave.

The Executioner | Daisuke Shen Which one was the executioner? For there must be a sense of justice, a purpose. One who is good, the other bad.

“We’d sighted the executioner from above, through the window of the kitchen. He wore a simple gray blouse, loose and sleeveless despite the weather. I could see the top of his head, a neat part jutting down the middle of his black curls.”

So many parallels between the Chicago heat wave of 1995 and the BC heat dome disaster of 2021. This 2002 Baffler story puts a human face on the victims and points to policy failures and societal and political neglect as root causes

Very worthwhile read

Heat Wave | Eric Klinenberg What Chicago needed was a social autopsy, a study of the institutions and relationships that permitted this catastrophe.

Thirty years ago this month, a deadly heat wave hit Chicago. It killed over seven hundred people, most of the victims were elderly and poor. But as Eric Klinenberg wrote in issue no. 15, it was more than just the heat that did them in.

Fools Russian | Will McDonald Try as he may to distance himself, Gary Shteyngart writes like a Russian, fearless and real.

In “Vera, or Faith,” Gary Shteyngart depicts the absurd struggles of the mixed-race daughter of immigrants: phony liberalism, right-wing trolls, etc. Like many refugees, her greatest fear is homelessness—but in a sense, she’s already there.

The Executioner | Daisuke Shen Which one was the executioner? For there must be a sense of justice, a purpose. One who is good, the other bad.

She was under no illusions that he loved her—but will she surrender? In “The Executioner,” an affair takes a surreal turn over a dinner of octopus.

Reject Transgender Liberalism | Jules Gill-Peterson In the wake of the most recent Supreme Court term, it’s clear the trans movement must change legal and political course—but what might that look like?

“It is no coincidence that the battle over ‘transgender rights’ is being waged as a struggle over the meaning and force of the Fourteenth Amendment.”