Readings

The author of Children of Paradise on a decade of reporting on Iran, history as a story of ideas, and the importance of understanding the events in foreign countries on their own terms.

There can be fantastic narrative dissonance when conflicting elements clash.

Building a network through the fog of depression can feel impossible. Now, more and more people are going online to fill gaps in our mental health care system. 

How the seminal series became a masterwork in scoring teen angst, one lawn-twirl at a time.

On the 25th anniversary of the release of The Black Album, an appraisal of how Metallica's Post-Good era helped secure its legacy as the greatest American band of all time.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it threatened to wash away a major part of the American South's Jewish history—a tough notion to sustain and preserve even in the best of times.

One doesn’t have to look hard to find disheartening and downright offensive portrayals of sex workers on screen, but the conspicuous absence of friends feels particularly cruel.

The Palestinian filmmaker on nationalism, film as resistance and hope.

Starvation became a stand-in for the pain of loneliness; a way to account for it, and also to punish myself for being unlovable.