Tangent

Eve Ensler's latest book, In the Body of the World, sees the Vagina Monologues creator struggling to situate herself in her body. It's part of a new wave of memoirs probing the mind/body dichotomy—which persists, despite the fact that we know better.

A reader's favourite subject is himself. As David Shields' Literature Saved My Life makes clear, we visit the worlds of literature to find ourselves.

As Shereen El Feki writes in Sex and the Citadel, sexual mores in the Arab world may be changing with the revolutionary tide. But what does sex have to do with politics?

We are the first generation for whom made-to-measure clothing is exotic. Instead, we drape ourselves in sizes standardized to no one in particular.

Mothers have a long and influential history as a political category in America—and Americans would seem to have a long history of ambivalence toward them.

Willa Cather never wanted her letters published; a new volume defies her outright. Then again, Kafka asked a friend to burn his writing after he died. On the ethics of posthumous publishing.

Landscape untouched by human activity is virtually non-existent, and our attempts to reinvent the natural world tend toward the uncanny and disturbing.

Is there any reason why midwives and nurses—who would allow women greater control over their reproductive life—shouldn't perform abortions?

Understanding physics is like catching up with a soap opera: very complicated. Thankfully, there are trailers to keep us up to date.