The Critic and Her Publics

Carina del Valle Schorske is a writer, translator, and wannabe backup dancer. Her debut essay collection, The Other Island, is forthcoming from Riverhead Books. It was recently awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. She writes about Caribbean culture, literary politics, diasporic dramas, and the songs she can’t stop singing to herself. Her essays have been published many places including The Believer, The Cut, The Point, and the New York Times Magazine, where she is now a contributing writer. As a translator, she focuses on Puerto Rican poetry, especially the work of Marigloria Palma. Her own poetry has been featured in a variety of small journals and anthologies, and supported by fellowships from CantoMundo, MacDowell, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.Recorded October 17, 2023 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf

Maggie Doherty is the author of The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s (2020), which won the Marfield Prize for Arts Writing and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and the Nation, among other publications. Recorded April 9, 2024 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf

Doreen St. Félix has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2017. Previously, she was a culture writer at MTV News. Her writing has appeared in the Times Magazine, New York, Vogue, The Fader, and Pitchfork. St. Félix was named on the Forbes “30 Under 30” media list in 2016. In 2017, she was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, and, in 2019, she won in the same category.Recorded March 26, 2024 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf

Guest Lauren Michele Jackson, writer and professor, discusses her critiques of anti-racist reading lists and cultural appropriation. Talks about transitioning from art to writing, digital blackface, and the impact of internet culture. Explores depth, intimacy, and women's culture in literature, highlighting the evolution of the female body and women's culture with a pop culture twist. Analyzes the multifaceted representation of Barbie and its cultural significance.

Jo Livingstone is a medieval literature scholar, a critic, and the 2020 National Book Critics Circle recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. After receiving a BA in English literature from the University of Oxford and a PhD in medieval literature from New York University, Livingstone went on to write cultural criticism for The New Republic and currently manages the editorial website The Stopgap with Daniel Lavery. They are currently a visiting professor at Pratt Institute.Recorded February 20, 2024 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf

Moira Donegan, a writer in residence at the Clayman Institute and columnist for The Guardian, dives into the pressing intersections of gender, politics, and law. She reflects on her journey from student to author and the personal impact of the Me Too movement. Donegan discusses the emotional complexity behind the infamous 'shitty media men' list and addresses the chilling implications of legal decisions like the Dobbs case. With insights on feminist discourse and the challenges of advocacy, she champions the urgent need for women's rights in today's society.

Anahid Nersessian is a literary critic and Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her first book, Utopia, Limited: Romanticism and Adjustment, was published by Harvard University Press in 2015, and her second, The Calamity Form: On Poetry and Social Life, by the University of Chicago Press in 2020. Her latest, Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse was released in 2022. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, and her writing has also appeared in The Paris Review, New Left Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and n+1. She co-founded and co-edits the Thinking Literature series at the University of Chicago Press.Recorded November 14, 2023 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf

Hannah Goldfield is a staff writer at The New Yorker, covering restaurants and food culture. Previously, she was a fact checker at The New Yorker and an editor at T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Her writing has appeared in New York magazine and the Times, among other publications.Recorded November 7, 2023 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf

Sophie Pinkham is a writer, journalist, and critic specializing in Russian and Ukrainian literature, culture, and politics. She is the author of Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine (2016) and the forthcoming The Spirit in the Trees, for which she has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar grant. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, Pinkham writes primarily (though not exclusively) about Russia and Ukraine. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Economist 1843 Magazine, The New Yorker, New Left Review, The Washington Post, and many other publications.Recorded October 10, 2023 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf

Andrea Long Chu is a Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist and critic at New York magazine. Her book Females, an extended annotation of a lost play by Valerie Solanas, was published by Verso in 2019 and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Nonfiction. Her writing has also appeared in n+1, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Bookforum, Boston Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4Columns, and Jewish Currents.Recorded September 26, 2023 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Knopf