literary criticism | The Smart Set

Reimagining Excess

Matt Hanson — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 15:22:02 +0000

“All Things Are Too Small” declares the title, borrowed from a 13th-century Dutch mystic, of the new collection of essays by Becca Rothfeld, one of the most prolific and versatile critics working today. The claim initially confused me. Too small? Casting a weary glance at the way we live now — visual excess blaring from […]

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The Smart Set — Then and Now

David Stromberg — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 11:30:00 +0000

Despite its outsize influence on American literature, The Smart Set is hardly known today. Yet there was a time when the writing in its pages set the tone for the social and cultural debates of the period. Originally founded in 1900 by Colonel William d’Alton Mann as a magazine for New York’s upper classes, in […]

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Unnatural Selection

Morgan Meis — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:12:43 +0000

The latest public discussion about the fate of literary criticism features The Literary Darwinists. With articles appearing in The Boston Globe, The Chronicle, The Nation and elsewhere, there’s a certain buzz. Literary Darwinists are reacting to the rather pitiful — and undisputed — state in which literary criticism finds itself. Particularly within the academy, […]

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Plimped Out

Graeme Wood — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:12:43 +0000

Is the world a stale and weary place, now that George Plimpton (1927-2003) is no longer in it? Hardly. But if it still seems fresh with possibility, Plimpton deserves his share of credit for making it so. His legacy is the magazine he edited — The Paris Review — but he is known […]

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Women’s Studies

Jessa Crispin — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:12:43 +0000

One of the unfortunate side effects of being female is the constant marketing of products as specifically “for women.” It’s not just deodorant and cheap pink razors. There are books, and then there are books for women. Seal Press calls itself the publisher of “Groundbreaking Books For Women, By Women,” but theirs is a very […]

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