Willa Glickman

Hidden Crimes

“The cobalt they produced was going into our phone and electric vehicle batteries. How could we be basing the future on such a dysfunctional and tragic practice?”

The Decadent Life of the Mind

“There aren’t a lot of freelance philosophers in the world anymore. I can wake up in the morning, dream up any text I like of any length and any degree of complexity, in any style and on any topic, and just sit down and write it.”

‘People Are Not a Crisis’

Eric Adams has insisted that his administration is doing its best to house New York's asylum seekers, but the city's shortage of shelter space is the result of political choices.

The New Organizers

“It’s a strange moment: there is simultaneously extreme wealth and skyrocketing real estate prices and rents but also austerity for anything in the public sphere (other than the police).”

Writing into Silence

“What happens when, through education and the resulting social mobility, the writer comes to incarnate power over others—like the person they once were?”

The Fight for Fair Wages

America’s lowest-paid workers are at a breaking point, and grassroots labor organizing may offer the only way out.

‘A Wakeup Call from Hell’

By striking for safe staffing levels, New York City nurses joined a wave of labor unrest that has swept the health care industry in response to Covid-19.

Tracking the Trolls

“With Bolsonaro out of the way, I look forward to writing more about mental health issues and other topics of everyday life.”

Man About the House

“It would be good for voters’ confidence in democracy if there were a clearer connection between what people vote for in an election and what a governing party is able to do once it wins power.”

Where the Sidewalk Ends

“We live in time; our lives unfold in time and are largely determined by time.”

The Crossroads

“Do we continue to place the vast majority of our hopes, expectations, time, and commitment in conventional politics that produce outcomes insufficient for the crises confronting our society and species?”

Empire Records

“The most popular histories are usually of leaders and wars—‘chaps and maps.’ After the fortieth Churchill biography, that can get tedious.”

Blue Planet

"Science journalists have always had to find ways of ‘translating’ complicated concepts without sacrificing accuracy, but even over the course of my career the job has gotten so much harder."

Late Romanticism

"Many of my closest friends are poets, and it seems like a pretty serious affliction."

Thinking in Old English

“I use my essays for the public to think through my research questions. I cannot imagine ever writing a monograph in a traditional scholarly style again.”

Fruits of Empire

The plant explorers of the USDA succeeded in bringing the world's fruits to American supermarkets. But at what human, ecological, and gustatory cost?

Ramblin’ Man

“I’m fascinated by the notion of storytelling as wayfinding. The compact between narrative and walking is ancient—every path tells.”

A Proclivity for the Unknown

“I was always attracted by the cosmos—the night sky and the deep, dark mysteries it held have always seduced me.”

The Future of Fracking

New technology has allowed access to more oil and gas in the US than ever expected. Will we be able to turn away from this dangerous windfall before it's too late?

A Park Apart

In Irina Rozovsky's In Plain Air, Brooklyn's Prospect Park is an oasis of recreation.