Tivnu, the Jewish hands-on social justice gap year program in Portland OR, is doing its first-ever program for adults. Four days of volunteering, educational programming, sightseeing, & socializing. Info session January 23 8:30/5:30. Learn more: tivnu.org/all-grown-up/.

New piece today. It's about arts criticism as it existed when I came of age as a critic in the late 1980s, what's happened to it since, why it matters, and how all this reflects the changing situation of the arts more broadly. persuasion.community/p/how-art-lost…

New podcast ep. Really good convo about higher ed. We touch on lots of controversial topics: political extremism/homogeneity among professors, affirmative action, DEI, academic freedom, campus protests, crisis in the humanities. I, you know, let it fly. open.spotify.com/episode/0QApjI…

Tivnu, the Jewish social justice gap year in Portland OR, is accepting applications for 2025-26. Hands-on work, individualized internships, Jewish learning and communal living, outdoor adventure in the great Northwest. Financial aid available. Tivnu.org.

Today is launch day for The Metropolitan Review, a new literary journal I'm on the editorial board of. At last a place for rigorous, ambitious criticism and vigorous, idiosyncratic writing. Pitches welcome. The Metropolitan Review metropolitanreview.com

New podcast appearance, another conversation about my piece in the Chronicle from after the election, "The Politics of the Academy Have Been Defeated." quillette.com/2025/02/01/pod…

New piece about the program I led in October for the Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life, specifically about the reading we did, so different from the way people read for the most part today. the-hinternet.com/p/here-come-th…

On Fri, 3/8, I will be participating in a panel for UT Austin's College of Liberal Arts on the question, "Who Are the Real Elite?" In advance of the event, the college asked me to write a short essay on the question for their blog, which piece is now out. utaustinliberalarts.substack.com/p/who-are-the-…

New podcast episode. We talk about some of the issues I discussed in my recent piece on art and art criticism. Really good conversation. Apologies for the hat. musicallyspeaking.substack.com/p/episode-487-…

4/1: info session for Tivnu, the hands-on, social-justice, Jewish-learning-and-living, canoeing-and-camping, growing-up-and-discovering-yourself gap year program in Portland OR. Please spread the word to college-deciding high school seniors and other potential participants.

New podcast appearance. Great conversation with the great Daniel Oppenheimer. My origin story as a writer; the "not-left" and the energy on the right; elite education; are rich people happy?; Jewish intellectualism; intellectual scenes; Jewish identity. danieloppenheimer.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-…

New appearance on one of my regular talking-places, the redoubtable Andrew Keen's daily podcast. We discuss the state of men, the universities, the left, etc. Andrew Keen keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2476…

New podcast appearance for Derate the Hate, a show about bettering the world by bridging divides. 𝑫𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒕 deratethehate.com/episodes/the-e…

New piece, an attempt to understand the 2024 election. The new regime has buried those memories in a burning pile of garbage, but it's necessary to understand what went wrong. Only the blue team can defeat this monster, and it's not doing very well. salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/1242-…

Mon 5/12, 1 PM Eastern, I'll be doing a live webcast w/ Erec Smith of the Cato Institute about the Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life, the unique, remarkable intellectual retreat I'm involved with. Registration required. cato.org/events/compete…

Video of event w/ Erec Smith of Free Black Thought. We spend the 1st half talking about the political turn in academia, the 2nd (starting c. 23:00) talking about the Matthew Strother Center, the retreat and study program for adults that I'm involved with. cato.org/events/compete…

I've been asked to announce that I'm going to be included in Best American Essays 2025, coming out in October and available for preorder now. The editor is Jia Tolentino, and other authors include John Jeremiah Sullivan, Christian Lorentzen, and Eula Biss. harpercollins.com/pages/bestamer…

New podcast appearance on Andrew Keen's Keen On America. We discuss the themes of my recent post-election piece in Salmagundi: the exhaustion of the liberal establishment and what can be done about it. keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2538…

New podcast episode. A chill, unpredictable conversation about eros and the left, incels, the life and death of the artist, all prefaced by a bit about Portland vs. the Northeast vs. the Midwest. kenilgunas.substack.com/p/bill-deresie…

Great new podcast episode with a really smart host who is both left-liberal and Calvinist. We talk about my post-election piece (the exhaustion of the liberal establishment, etc.) but lots of interesting directions, including several spates of Jew talk. giveandtake.fireside.fm/293