Moral Mysteries | The Point Magazine “It is always a significant question to ask about any philosopher: what is he afraid of?” wrote Iris Murdoch in her slim work of moral philosophy, The Sovereignty of Good.

The bottomless riches of Iris Murdoch's books yield this good piece in The Point by Parker Henry, specifically about Murdoch's gift for "individualizing morality" thepointmag.com/criticism/mo...

A History of Erasures | The Point Magazine When I set out to become a novelist in Turkey in the early 2000s, Leylâ Erbil had yet to publish what is perhaps her most accomplished work, What Remains.

Learning to write like Leylâ Erbil—new essay for @thepointmag.bsky.social:

thepointmag.com/criticism/a-...

A History of Erasures | The Point Magazine When I set out to become a novelist in Turkey in the early 2000s, Leylâ Erbil had yet to publish what is perhaps her most accomplished work, What Remains.

New online, @kayagenc.bsky.social on Leylâ Erbil’s experimental novel “What Remains,” and his path toward understanding her challenge to Turkish literature and politics:

A History of Erasures | The Point Magazine When I set out to become a novelist in Turkey in the early 2000s, Leylâ Erbil had yet to publish what is perhaps her most accomplished work, What Remains.

In collaging her life with the life of her country, Leylâ Erbil had fermented a new strain of autofiction, using her life to write something thoroughly historical and political.

Check out the translation, an excerpt from Castaldi’s novel “Per quante vite,” here:

Including @jrichards.bsky.social’s translation of Marosia Castaldi, originally published in issue 33!

Beyond Equality | The Point Magazine What I’m about to say is going to seem like a bad joke: the trouble with the left is its egalitarianism.

recommended monday morning reading: thepointmag.com/politics/bey...

One Week in Beirut | The Point Magazine Monday Recently my four-year-old has grown interested in the notion of infinity. Can you add a number to infinity? she asks on the way to […]

Before the war, my biggest teaching worry was AI-generated content submitted for essay assignments. Now I receive messages from students tending to wounded relatives in the hospital… it doesn’t take long before everyone knows someone affected by the bombing thepointmag.com/forms-of-lif...

Breaking Point Beirut | The Point Magazine One million. That is the latest figure from the Lebanese government briefing of the number of people who have been displaced in the nineteen days […]

Zeead Yaghi on Israel’s war on Lebanon, a campaign that has produced massive destruction, displacement, and terror, while also reigniting sectarian tension. A harrowing article. thepointmag.com/forms-of-lif...

Breaking Point Beirut | The Point Magazine One million. That is the latest figure from the Lebanese government briefing of the number of people who have been displaced in the nineteen days […]

New on Forms of Life, Zeead Yaghi on sectarianism at its breaking point in Lebanon, and Israel’s strategy of stoking it:

My sister and her family — husband, four-year-old, two-year-old — live in Beirut. They are still there, still trying to teach at AUB and still trying to keep their kids' lives normal despite constant disruptions. I think about them constantly. Her husband wrote this. thepointmag.com/forms-of-lif...

One Week in Beirut | The Point Magazine Monday Recently my four-year-old has grown interested in the notion of infinity. Can you add a number to infinity? she asks on the way to […]

New on Forms of Life, a dispatch from DeVan Ard on the first week of conflict in Beirut:

Moral Mysteries | The Point Magazine “It is always a significant question to ask about any philosopher: what is he afraid of?” wrote Iris Murdoch in her slim work of moral philosophy, The Sovereignty of Good.

“[O]nce I was relieved of the burden of having to figure out the answer to the other, I could more clearly see and appreciate the complex mystery of whoever stood before me”

Parker Henry’s beautifully personal review of Hopwood’s The Moral Philosophy of Iris Murdoch
thepointmag.com/criticism/mo...

Moral Mysteries | The Point Magazine “It is always a significant question to ask about any philosopher: what is he afraid of?” wrote Iris Murdoch in her slim work of moral […]

In his recent book on the moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch, Mark Hopwood gives us “a Murdoch who is no longer just a defective analytic philosopher, but a thinker in a tradition of her own,” writes Parker Henry:

Where Does Politics Take Place? | The Point Magazine The starkest, most disquieting scene from the film was printed on postcards and handed out at the door. We picked up our postcards as we […]

New online, a web supplement to our issue 36 forum on the left and the good life: Ege Yumuşak on making space for political engagement in everyday life.

2026 Summer Workshop Application Apply for the Public Thinking Summer Workshop at the University of Chicago.

Apply here: publicthinking.typeform.com/workshop26app

We're hosting two workshops this year at UChicago: "Questions Concerning Technology," taught by Jon Baskin and Dan Silver, and "The Good Life," taught by Anastasia Berg and Joseph Keegin. More info: publicthinking.thepointmag.com/workshop#themes

Summer Workshop — Public Thinking

Applications are open for our fully funded Summer Workshops on the philosophy and practice of public thinking—an incredible opportunity for college students interested in writing and engaging the public. Learn More: www.publicthinking.thepointmag.com/workshop

Larger than Life | The Point Magazine At the screening of Marty Supreme that I went to before Christmas, Timothée Chalamet said that his performance was in part inspired by The Last […]

"We can excuse someone being an asshole if they go on to do great things, if they do the things we can’t. There’s much less to sympathize with in the asshole who ends up choosing the small life like the rest of us." @zeets.bsky.social on "Marty Supreme". thepointmag.com/forms-of-lif...

Listless Liberalism | The Point Magazine Where is liberalism’s “Fascinating Fascism”? Who is its Riefenstahl?

Really good piece on the stylelessness of liberals:

'There is no liberal Joe Rogan because his liberal equivalent would rather soliloquize and tweak a couple of ordinances than enter into an unscripted tête-à-tête for hours.' thepointmag.com/criticism/li...

Larger than Life | The Point Magazine At the screening of Marty Supreme that I went to before Christmas, Timothée Chalamet said that his performance was in part inspired by The Last […]

I wrote about Marty Supreme and the problem with writing a compelling unlikable protagonist and then undercutting him at the end in the name of sentimentality thepointmag.com/forms-of-lif...

Larger than Life | The Point Magazine At the screening of Marty Supreme that I went to before Christmas, Timothée Chalamet said that his performance was in part inspired by The Last […]

New on Forms of Life, @zeets.bsky.social on sports movies, “Marty Supreme,” and the trouble with its ending:

On the Liberal Imagination | The Point Magazine There are understandable reasons why liberal and leftist intellectuals are cautious about discussing the good life.

“Unless we insist that politics is imagination and mind,” wrote the liberal critic Lionel Trilling, “we will learn that imagination and mind are politics, and of a kind that we will not like.””
thepointmag.com/politics/on-...

Soft Power in Hard Times | The Point Magazine Marx famously wrote that men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please—a line that has often crossed my mind […]

New online, Alex Gendler on Voice of America’s downfall and the end of soft power:

Orson Welles sets up a scene in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942).

An AI-driven reconstruction of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS @newyorker.com, Wes Anderson @thepointmag.bsky.social, Michael Almereyda @nytimes.com + @hammertonail.bsky.social + @screenslate.bsky.social, @szacharek.bsky.social on the underappreciated …

Did You See This? www.criterion.com/current/post...

super thoughtful, well laid out essay about reading literature in schools and progressive ed

loved this part about a character in Brave New World reading Shakespeare on his own, and how, lacking a broader context where others have also read and discussed Shakespeare, the books don’t save him

Freedom of Intelligence | The Point Magazine In the name of progress, public education is now pressed into the service of agendas that align with corporate profit, workforce readiness, ideological reproduction and demand for quantifiable results...

Ah that feeling when you read something that says everything you're currently trying to write, but better. Love this piece on progressive education by @annieabrams.bsky.social: thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

Listless Liberalism | The Point Magazine Where is liberalism’s “Fascinating Fascism”? Who is its Riefenstahl?

"Good politics, like good art, does not lecture or declaim. It strains; it argues; it is an unending negotiation with the difficult and intransigent adventure of humanity." || via @thepointmag.bsky.social