Politics Literature Arts Ideas

Philosophy & Religion

Mandala of Vajrabhairava, Ngor Monastery, Tibet, 1650–1750

David Shulman

Buddhist Baedekers

March 26, 2020 issue

Peter E. Gordon

Max the Fatalist

June 11, 2020 issue

An icon of Christ from the Serbian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity and St. Spyridon, Trieste, Italy, nineteenth century

Diarmaid MacCulloch

The Vitality of Orthodoxy

July 2, 2020 issue

Kwame Anthony Appiah

The Key to All Mythologies

February 13, 2020 issue

Elizabeth Bruenig

Jesus, Mary, and Mary

‘Virgin Whore’ by Emma Maggie Solberg and ‘The Magdalene in the Reformation’ by Margaret Arnold

November 21, 2019 issue

Cass R. Sunstein

The Siren of Selfishness

April 9, 2020 issue

Marilynne Robinson

What Are We Doing Here?

Why teach the humanities? Why study them?

November 9, 2017 issue

Malise Ruthven

The Islamic Road to the Modern World

Christopher de Bellaigue’s ‘The Islamic Enlightenment’ and Wael Abu-‘Uksa’s ‘Freedom in the Arab World’

June 22, 2017 issue

The Latest

Anne Enright

Of Angels, Saints, and Faith in Fiction

“I am interested in metaphor, that is where I get my fix of transcendence,” says the novelist.

February 20, 2021

Anne Enright

Spirited Away

What is the spark that makes a shared God not just real, but so present he talks back to you?

March 11, 2021 issue

Gregory Hays

Tune Out & Lean In

The recent revival of Stoic philosophy has stayed surprisingly true to its ancient roots while gaining popularity among executives and tech-bros.

March 11, 2021 issue

Richard A. Friedman

Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Alluring

The human preference for plausible meaning over stubborn facts makes us especially susceptible in a world constantly flooded with information.

February 12, 2021

Jim Holt

The Power of Catastrophic Thinking

Should we value human lives in the distant future as much as present ones?

February 25, 2021 issue

Miranda Seymour

Promethean Women

Both Mary Wollstonecraft, darling of twentieth-century feminists, and her visionary daughter Mary Shelley continue to influence us today.

February 25, 2021 issue

Eamon Duffy

Why Was There a Reformation?

Though Steven Ozment’s The Age of Reform appeared amid a wave of critical thought about the Reformation, it rejected the new histories in favor of polemic.

February 25, 2021 issue

Pamela Druckerman

The Consolations of Philosophy

My philosopher-therapist thought the ancient Greeks could lead me to the happy state of eudaimonia—literally, having good demons. But would mine play along?

December 31, 2020

James Romm

What Happened at Masada?

We know the Roman conquest of Masada only through the account of the enigmatic Jewish historian Josephus, whose shifting allegiances make his motives hard to discern.

January 14, 2021 issue