The Point Magazine

God and Man in Orem | The Point Magazine I grew up a townie near Clemson University, so when campus hits the headlines, I react rather like a San Francisco native to the sight […]

New on Forms of Life, Jennie Lightweis-Goff on Charlie Kirk, William Buckley, and what happens when campus culture wars hit Southern universities:

Selected Novels | Eliza Barry Callahan on Fleur Jaeggy Listen now | On this episode of Selected Novels, Jess and Zach talk to Eliza Barry Callahan about Fleur Jaeggy’s Sweet Days of Discipline.

On today’s episode of Selected Novels, Zach Fine and Jess Swoboda talk to Eliza Barry Callahan about Fleur Jaeggy’s “Sweet Days of Discipline”:

Reality Check | The Point Magazine “It seemed like an off-season Carnaval,” the newscaster narrates for Brazil’s UOL News, over scenes of a street party with dancing, trumpets and drums. “But […]

New on Forms of Life, Clement Gelly on Bolsonaro’s conviction, Trump’s authoritarianism, and what it’s like to keep up with U.S. news through a Brazilian lens:

The Moral Hemisphere | The Point Magazine A strange fact about the United States of America is that its name is not very specific.

New online, @perioikos.bsky.social on Greg Grandin’s “America, América” and the difference between a moral and a moralizing history:

A Different Annihilation | The Point Magazine The first novel I read by Michel Houellebecq was Elementary Particles, probably in 1999. I read it in German translation, toward the end of a year […]

On absorption vs theatricality - an interesting read thepointmag.com/criticism/a-...

A Different Annihilation | The Point Magazine The first novel I read by Michel Houellebecq was Elementary Particles, probably in 1999. I read it in German translation, toward the end of a year […]

Psyched and grateful that @thepointmag.bsky.social published my essay on reading Houellebecq through the lens of theatricality and absorption from Michael Fried.
Check it out there thepointmag.com/criticism/a-...

A Different Annihilation | The Point Magazine The first novel I read by Michel Houellebecq was Elementary Particles, probably in 1999. I read it in German translation, toward the end of a year […]

How does Houellebecq achieve his remarkable thriller/anti-thriller effect in his most recent novel, “Annihilation”? The art historian Michael Fried’s writing on absorption and theatricality holds the key, Daniel Silver writes:

Live Leak | The Point Magazine Ten days ago, my roommate flagged me down and showed me a portrait-mode video of somebody assassinating the conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Kirk was only […]

New on Forms of Life, Oliver Eagan on Charlie Kirk and what it will take to respond to “post-political” acts of violence:

The Zone of Interest | The Point Magazine If somehow you were to wander into a screening of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2023) without knowing what you were getting into, it might take about ten minutes to figure things out.

In other news, this critical essay on "Zone of Interest" by @garthgreenwell.bsky.social is both beautiful and provocative. Doing some lesson prep for my screening of ZoI next week and happened upon it. thepointmag.com/criticism/th...

Among the Hamilton Fish | The Point Magazine Two summers ago, two colleagues and I tried to spend our lunch break in what we’d noticed was a miniature wading pool about ten minutes […]

New on Forms of Life, Becky Zhang on her late-breaking summer fling: New York’s public swimming pools.

A Letter to Vania | The Point Magazine I’m still breathing, I’ll tell her, and so are those around me.

Read the original story here:

The Act of a Madman Two conversations with Yousri Alghoul and Graham Liddell

New on our Substack, two interviews with Graham Liddell and Yousri Alghoul about Liddell’s translation of Alghoul’s issue 35 story “A Letter to Vania,” how their collaboration came out, and why writing is an act of madness:

The War Habit | The Point Magazine On any given day for the past quarter of a century, the United States was probably dropping bombs on a country somewhere.

From vicarious wars to remote wars -- to democratizing war? Great essay by David Bromwich via @thepointmag.bsky.social: thepointmag.com/politics/the...

Edu Ex Machina | The Point Magazine This spring, I took a class on the history of AI. I chose it not so much for its subject matter but for one of […]

New on Forms of Life, Maria Gomberg on why exhaustively AI-proofed syllabi won’t solve the problem of AI use in college classes:

Printers Row Lit Fest The 40th Annual Printers Row Lit Fest, the largest free outdoor literary event in the Midwest, returns to Printers Row on September 6-7, 2025.

Midwestern readers, take note: we’ll be at our local book fair, Chicago’s Printers Row Lit Fest, all weekend, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Find us at the Small Press Tent (Booth GG)! Details here:

If you like extremely overlooked works of mid century literature and podcasts oh boy have I got a link for you—

Thought I'd share this on David Brion Davis, the historian of slavery and abolition, whose life's work was shaped by his experience as a US military policeman in occupied post-war Germany. Seems pertinent in many ways right now.

thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

Selected Novels | Catherine Lacey on Evan S. Connell - The Point Podcast On this episode of Selected Novels, Jess and Zach talk to Catherine Lacey about Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge.Want more from The Point? Subscribe here at 50% off the normal rate.

On today’s new episode of Selected Novels, Zach Fine and Jess Swoboda talk to @catherinelacey.bsky.social about Evan S. Connell’s “Mrs. Bridge”—at once a comic satire and a tender, sympathetic treatment of the mid-century American housewife, written in a style all its own.

Issue 35 Release Party | The Point Magazine Join us on September 17th in New York City to celebrate the release of our special new issue on violence! Come hang out, have a […]

Two weeks from now we’re throwing an issue 35 release party in New York! Details + RSVP here:

A Streetcar Named Disaster | The Point Magazine On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Plaquemines Parish near the mouth of the Mississippi and proceeded to devastate the landscape: upwards of […]

New on Forms of Life, Joey Keegin on the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort and what New Orleans has to show for it, twenty years later:

Begin the World Over Again | The Point Magazine I was once told that I was in an abusive relationship with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. It is true that they have […]

New online, Steve Larkin on the agony and the ecstasy of college football:

Demonic Force | The Point Magazine While “everyone” may understand the pragmatic or raw emotive reasons for violence, I’m not sure anyone understands sadistic violence sans motive, especially when acted out on helpless victims or in th...

Mary Gaitskill is one of the few writers who effectively interrogates the nature of evil and the uglier sides of our internal lives.

thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

Unusual applications/sources of philosophy make for great reading. Case in point:

Mano a Mano | The Point Magazine Aristotle, a student of a wrestler named Plato, taught that eudaimonia, usually translated as “happiness” or “the good life,” requires both intellectual and moral virtues. […]

New online, an online supplement to our “What is violence for?” symposium: Gordon Marino on boxing and the good life.

Violence and Beauty How we find our covers, plus a conversation with the issue 35 cover photographer

New on our Substack: a conversation with our issue 35 cover photographer, and some behind-the-scenes info about how we find our covers.

Safe and Beautiful | The Point Magazine It’s 8 a.m. in Washington, D.C., the crime-ridden cesspool where the Trump-administration staffer known as “Big Balls” was recently beaten by a group of teenagers, and it’s shaping up to be a brightly...

Becca Rothfeld on DC’s crime stats vs. “ambient social disorder”: “framing an allergy to empiricism as proof of spiritual profundity” thepointmag.com/forms-of-lif...

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads Recommending excellent stories by Tony Ho Tran, Rachel Aviv, Ariel Saramandi, Theo Lipsky, and Inori Roy.

Our Top 5:

• Mapping the scars (@slate.com)
• A parent, twice met (@newyorker.com)
• Paradise in peril (@thedialmag.bsky.social)
• Hallucinating war @thepointmag.bsky.social)
• Wriggly business (@thelocal.to)

longreads.com/2025/08/15/t...

Safe and Beautiful | The Point Magazine Not that it matters, but my “lived experience”—and I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s ever had any other kind—remains obstinately uneventful. It’s 8 a.m. in […]

New on Forms of Life, Becca Rothfeld on facts, feelings, and the National Guard’s restoration of the peace in Washington, D.C.:

Militants for Peace | The Point Magazine Christian pacifism irritates because it demands what the biblical scholar Richard Hays calls “the conversion of the imagination”—the overturning of certain assumptions that modernity lives by.

“Because Christian pacifism is eschatological, it doesn’t offer a universal ethic. Rather, it’s a way of life for those who desire to belong to the story that begins in Eden and culminates with the peaceable kingdom.” —Peter Mommsen, @thepointmag.bsky.social

Demonic Force | The Point Magazine While “everyone” may understand the pragmatic or raw emotive reasons for violence, I’m not sure anyone understands sadistic violence sans motive, especially when acted out on helpless victims or in th...

On “an alignment with a force of destruction that briefly exalts those who become its conduit”

thepointmag.com/examined-lif...