literature
What Is Life?
An astrobiologist finds the heart of his work in a new novel by Richard Powers.
Literature Should Be Taught Like Science
This renegade professor says literature is a machine that accelerates the human brain.
Why Computers Will Never Write Good Novels
The power of narrative flows only from the human brain.
Who Said Nobody Read Isaac Newton?
It’s a myth that legendary works in science aren’t read.
Only Disconnect! A Pandemic Reading of E.M. Forster
The astonishing relevance of the British writer’s story, “The Machine Stops.”
Al Gore Does His Best Ralph Waldo Emerson
The former vice president reads the transcendentalist poet—and reminds us of one.
Meet Harvard’s Own Poet-Physician
Rafael Campo on finding the humanity in medicine and science.
God Created Consciousness in Fiction
Given his grandeur, pettiness, and complexity, and his capacity for introspection, he’s the major exception to the flatness of ancient characters—God.Illustration by Humphrey King / Flickr Many modern novels do something that the earliest literature sometimes seems incapable of doing—representing the inner life of the individual, in all its complexity. The history of literature has […]
Why Doesn’t Ancient Fiction Talk About Feelings?
Literature’s evolution has reflected and spurred the growing complexity of society.
The Stars Are a Comforting Constant
A poet blends the personal with the cosmic.
