"What if one were to extend generosity to envy itself and thereby argue for a more nuanced understanding of envy?" From our new issue, read Nick Salvato's "Cuteness Envy": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

"After World War I, efforts to establish a nationwide interlibrary loan system intensified and were finally formalized in 1924 with a law that regulated its procedures." From our new issue, read Hannah Wiemer's "Libraries as 'Academic Traffic Facilities'": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

"Yusoff’s deft—and distinctive—notational system peppers her arguments throughout and buttresses her commitment to forging new modes of thinking about matter." New in review, Eyad Houssami on Kathryn Yusoff's Geologic Life, from Duke University Press: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/eyad_houssami_…

"It makes more solid sense to view Chinese experience in art and tech not as an outlier siloed in its black box but rather as a lifeworld that has spiraling relevance for everyone." From our new issue, read Margaret Hillenbrand's "Portals to the Soul": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

"Repair the World explores the intricacies of six existential challenges . . . that literature seeks to address, with writing and reading functioning as therapeutic tools." Bogdan Vişan and Ioana Danielescu on Alexandre Gefen's Repair the World: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/bogdan_vian_an…

"To say that translation is not original writing may be stating the obvious, but considering this statement in terms of linguistic relativity has far-reaching implications." From our new issue, read Eugenia Kelbert's "Translation as Different": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

"The film thus constitutes itself musically as a tragic history of modern feminine desire. Along the way, it reconfigures the interrelations of music, desire, and the film image." From our Autumn 2002 issue, read Lawrence Kramer's "Recognizing Schubert": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

"He illuminates our understanding of books, libraries, and learning in early modernity . . . whilst also directing 'a critical gaze at our own day-to-day practice of scholarly work.'" New in review, Andreas Tranvik on Andrew Hui's The Study: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/andreas_tranvi…

"Nobody saw more cinematographic rhythms than Panofsky. . . the only thing he objected to on his first trip to New York in 1931 was that 'the cinemas are extremely lousy.'" From our Spring 2003 issue, read Horst Bredekamp's "A Neglected Tradition?": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/37…

CI remembers Raymond Saunders (1934-2025). critinq.wordpress.com/2025/06/06/bla…

"In a comment that describes the antagonistic dynamics in the school, one teacher in the show reflects, 'no one wins. One side just loses more slowly.'" From our Autumn 2011 issue, read Anmol Chaddha and William Julius Wilson's "'Way Down in the Hole'": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

"Through close readings of Emily Brontë, George Eliot, and others, the book challenges its readers to immerse themselves in the 'fossil-fueled lifeworld' of the nineteenth century." Karen Pinkus on Nathan Hensley's Action without Hope, from UChicagoPress: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/karen_pinkus_r…

"For Freud, melancholy makes sense as the failure of mourning, as the failure of the process by which a lost object is let go." From our Winter 2014 issue, read Michael P. Steinberg's "Music and Melancholy": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

"Williams’s core conceptual contribution lies in reconceiving the tax code not as a neutral fiscal instrument but as a racializing apparatus." New in review, Zheng Wang on Robert B. Williams's Funding White Supremacy, from Cambridge University Press: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/zheng_wang_rev…

"The invitation to a kiss can also be an insult, as in the gesture of thumbing one’s nose, which means kiss my ass." From our Spring 2005 issue, read J. Hillis Miller's "What Is a Kiss?": journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…