Music Snobbery and the Case for Pop
By Lily Hu
The HPR's first symposium of Café B&A studies the ideas and objectivity of Steven Pinker in his new book.
By Michael Cotter, Joshua Lipson, and Caitlin Pendleton
Editor's Picks
The Resexification of War?
Grave of the Fireflies and Apocalypse Now showed malnourished toddlers and heads on stakes; Call of Duty shows badass special ops troopers shooting terrorists and riding snowmobiles.
By Ethan Loewi
Act of Valor and the Limits of Elitism
Even in the military, there are glimmers of the hubris and self-confidence that elite institutions can breed—especially in deep secrecy.
By Jonathan Yip
From the Magazine
Obama’s Other Balancing Act
The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency by Randall Kennedy
By Galila Gray
Patient Zero – Margin Call and the 2008 Crash
While Margin Call is not a primer for the financial crisis, it is a pity-provoking portrait of a gold-winged Icarus.
HaDag Nahash: Holy Land Funk Comes to Somerville
The band HaDag Nahash has been one of Israel’s most eloquent curators of left-wing disillusionment and despair in a post-Rabin era.
The Oprah Winfrey Ideal?
Despite some progress in women's rights, the balance between career and family can still be difficult to strike.
The Decline and Death of Violence
Are we living in the most peaceable era of our species’ existence? "Better Angels of Our Nature" by Steven Pinker
Spring Awakening’s Impetus and Resilience
The issues that were viewed as so taboo in 1891 become harder to present as “controversial.”
