Lauren Michele Jackson
Lauren Michele Jackson is a contributing writer at The New Yorker covering culture and politics. She is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and a fellow at New America. Her first book, the essay collection “White Negroes,” was published in 2019. Jackson received the 2024 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, from the National Book Critics Circle, for work including an essay on Percival Everett’s book “James.” She lives in Chicago.
Chicago, ICE, and the Lie of the American Pastoral
The city has often been spoken about as a war zone in need of saving from itself. But at home, as abroad, America’s enemies are so often of American invention.
Brandon Taylor on the Quandary of Black Art
The author discusses his latest novel, “Minor Black Figures,” and the discourse around racial subjectivity.
The High Femme Dystopia of Star Amerasu
In a series of comic videos set in 2099, the multitalented artist imagines our petty future.
A Sensualist’s History of Gay Marriage and Immigration
In a new book, “Deep House,” the author Jeremy Atherton Lin combines memoir and cultural history to expose the varied border crossings involved in same-sex love past and present.
The Paradoxes of Feminine Muscle
In a new book, the author Casey Johnston argues that pumping iron helped her “escape diet culture.” But a preoccupation with strength can take many forms.
The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain
Populist and patrician, hustler and moralist, salesman and satirist, he embodied the tensions within his America, and ours.
The Naïveté Behind Post-Election Despair
What sort of reply can one offer to a person who has already decided that the world ends here?
The Disquieting Dogmas Behind Three Cat Controversies
What can be learned from the collisions between pets and politics this election season?
The Right Side of Now
Appeals against the war in Gaza are often framed through the lens of the future: “You will regret having been silent.” What about speaking—and feeling—in the present tense?
We Must Defend the Bust
Breasts are subject to capricious restrictions and contradictory norms. What would it take to set them free?
Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Our Moment of Bad Reading
The once-upon-a-time defense of the poetics of rap has been ceded to the millennial mind of genius.com, taking every syllable as ripe for mundane exegesis.
Maggie Nelson on the Conversations She Wants to Be Having
The author of “The Argonauts” and the new collection “Like Love” discusses the performative aspect of writing, reading her old work, and becoming “lightly interested” in genre for the first time.
Percival Everett’s Philosophical Reply to “Huckleberry Finn”
In his new novel, “James,” Everett explores how an emblem of American slavery can write himself into being.
What Jennifer Lopez Has to Say About Bennifer
Lopez’s new album and accompanying film promise an “odyssey” into her heart, but the love story featured is only coyly, obliquely her own.
The Poignant Physicality of Zac Efron
The new wrestling movie “Iron Claw” follows a band of sorrow-haunted brothers. But it’s Efron’s body that best telegraphs pain.
How the Movie Professor Got Cancelled
The life of an academic lacks natural narrative momentum. Cue cancel culture.