How Gen Z Hears the Sirens of the Past
Today’s Gen Z youth have created a culture of hybridized nostalgia—an aestheticization of past fashions and lifestyles filtered through a modern lens.
Features
How Prayer Rugs Turned into War Rugs
When the sacred geometry of the Persian carpet was replaced by tanks, weapons, and bombs, westerners were fascinated. But how do the women who weave them feel?
Gettysburg and the Problems of Filling a Form
Gettysburg: An American Noh, like most Noh, is nearly plotless. It is “about” a veteran, and descendant of Union General Hancock, who travels to Gettysburg National Military Park, where he meets the ghost of Confederate General Armistead.
Take Me Out to The Ball Game
The faith Willie had in me to protect him from anything untoward, even from being hurt by the elements, mirrors the faith I had in my grandfather to protect me from the street gangs when he took me to a game over fifty years ago.
The Rise and Fall of the Louisiana Coastline
For six of the seven years we have owned this house, I have told friends I hoped the next hurricane would just wash it off its slab into the sea—after we were safely north, of course.
Preface
The suit, with its travels and meanings—an object imbued with memories of love and trauma, a symbol of rupture and connection between self and other, self and personal past, self and national history—represents a fitting way to frame a group of essays about Baldwin and democracy.
Introduction
With the possible exception of Walt Whitman, no other writer has given the foundational matter of love and democratic life in America such probing attention.
On Her Behalf
Baldwin’s closeness to his nephew, and the hope and great sadness housed within that bond, reminded me of my connection to my youngest niece. Both bookish. Both black. Both broke.
With James Baldwin at the Welcome Table
Apparently, Jimmy had been given an advance of $100,000 for If Beale Street Could Talk with the promise of another $200,000 on completion. I gathered that he was anxious to get it done. It seemed as if he needed the seclusion of this special place to write about the tragic life of black Americans.
For the Black Child Is Confused
We have always had much more than our simple notions of who we are and what this world has made us. For Americans, Baldwin pushes us towards the “hard to bear.”
