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Christopher Benfey

credit: Jim Gipe

Christopher Benfey

Christopher Benfey is the Mellon Professor of English Emeritus at Mount Holyoke. His most recent book is If: The Untold Story of Kipling’s American Years. (February 2023)

‘A Searing Bolt of Turquoise’

Hummingbirds, whose psychedelic feathers cover even more remarkable physiological adaptations, are dying out at alarming rates owing to climate change, but humans have long had a deadly fascination with these startling creatures.

The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds

by Jon Dunn

Hummingbird Salamander

by Jeff VanderMeer

Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment

an exhibition at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, October 28, 2020–January 17, 2021; the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, February 23–May 23, 2021; the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, and the Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, June 12–October 31, 2021; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, November 20, 2021–March 21, 2022

On Edward Hicks

by Sanford Schwartz

August 19, 2021 issue

John Cage and Merce Cunningham, France, 1970

The Opposite of Ordinary

Cunningham

a documentary film directed by Alla Kovgan

Dancing with Merce Cunningham

by Marianne Preger-Simon, with a foreword by Stuart Hodes and an afterword by Alastair Macaulay

Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)

by John Cage, edited by Joe Biel and Richard Kraft, with an afterword by David W. Rose

Love, Icebox: Letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham

with a foreword, commentary, and afterword by Laura Kuhn

Merce Cunningham: After the Arbitrary

by Carrie Noland

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July 2, 2020 issue

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