“American Literature didn’t die, it just disappeared: gone, evaporated into the thin air of bureaucratic-consumer corporate life.” Vince Passaro on Malcolm Cowley and the dream of the American canon.

“The institutions studied by political scientists do not exist outside ideology but are simply patterned instances of ideology—and if ideology changes drastically enough, the institutions change with it.” —Jason Blakely

"Overgrowth below, forever on all sides I cooed for the day I’m trying to breathe like the curtains do The opposite of what I’d tried yesterday" From a manuscript in progress by Riley Jones. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Fundamentally, though, museums expand because expansion does not need a reason. To the people who make the decisions, it justifies itself, like life or happiness or—for a few hopeless fogies—art.” —Jackson Arn

“What is that? Is that not longing? Pure and simple, open-ended as a fishing line. A gunshot. Oh my goodness.” From “Aliens in Mingus,” a new story by David Searcy.

“Through neural-circuit analysis, we confirmed that model behavior is controlled by abstract decision-making features related to risky and safe behaviors, not merely by prompts. AI systems have developed humanlike addiction.” harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Utilities aren’t just passive actors responding to market signals; in most cases, they are corporations, seeking to maximize value and increase profits.” @nickbowlin.bsky.social on the utility industry’s regulatory failures and the soaring cost of electricity.

Subscribe to get hand-picked pieces from the Harper's archives delivered to your inbox every Friday. buff.ly/LZ8tp3w

“The phrase ‘everybody did their best to ignore the disaster taking hold’ has, I find, a rather eerie ring to it at the moment.” Vince Passaro (@passerpiccolo) on Malcolm Cowley and the the American canon.

“She doesn’t buy or cook kale, but it’s as if she attacks the food that she does buy and cook.” From Diane Williams, originally published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern ( @mcsweeneys.net ).

From the January Harper’s Index. buff.ly/tPrULic

“He sees the literary world as Cowley must have seen it—not merely in terms of the glories of literary creation, but of the absurd and grimly heroic battles often required to get good and even great books published.” —Vince Passaro

“A village theatrical staging of N. F. Simpson’s absurdist play The Hole. Abandoned when it became clear that its anti-religious sentiments would not go down well in a church setting. (2025)” From a list of projects undertaken and abandoned by Adam Smyth.

“The atmosphere in the courtroom was notably strange, somehow unsteady, as if gravity had been tampered with.” Rosa Lyster on the trial of the Sycamore Gap killers.

“The American power grid has become, arguably, the largest machine on earth.” Nick Bowlin ( @nickbowlin.bsky.social ) on the utility industry’s regulatory failures and the soaring cost of electricity.

“How such a little town, since railroad days a hundred years ago or more, unravels like the mind.” From “Aliens in Mingus,” a new story by David Searcy.

“Ferrara’s films, with their walking-wounded characters who tear into one another when not busy inflicting grievous punishments on themselves, stood out for making no concessions when it came to providing something like a rooting interest.” harpers.org/archive/2025...

“Nobody’s ‘haunted by the past’ or feels the ‘inexorability of time’ quite like a penniless twentysomething.” Vince Passaro on Malcolm Cowley and the the American canon.

“My goal is not just to write a clever clue. I want you to laugh out loud when you realize you have been hoodwinked by the English language.” A Harper's puzzle tester interviews Richard E. Maltby Jr. about his fifty years writing cryptic crosswords.

“Very shortly, I shall be back at my work again like a man reborn. It is a marvelous passage I now have to resume composing!” Richard Wagner in a letter of November 1864 to Ludwig II, the king of Bavaria, who had paid off the composer’s debts. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“The woodcutter and his friend had to creep along a path that ran beside a wall, one of the oldest in the country. It was midnight, and they were carrying a saw. The storm was above their heads. They came upon the tree, which stood all alone.” —Rosa Lyster

“Why does he still struggle? Believe in phantoms. Believe in freedom. Believe in make-believe. Figure it out, he urges himself.” Adapted from Slaveroad, by John Edgar Wideman.

“Kirk, the face of conservative youth and a powerful force in Republican politics, had shown clear signs that he was changing sides on that battlefield of ideas—at least when it came to ideas about Israel. This made him dangerous.” —Andrew Cockburn

“Because oil fixers play such an important and sensitive role, they can accumulate extraordinary power with heads of state, who often bestow on them the title of presidential adviser and grant them use of a diplomatic passport.” – Ken Silverstein

“Is it ungrateful, in the midst of the second Trump Administration, to be skeptical of the art museums that have managed to keep expanding, thanks to billionaire largesse?” From an essay by Jackson Arn, which appeared in the Fall issue of Liberties.

“When utilities earn substantial profits, one might expect customers to see some relief in their monthly bills. But as a result of the ownership model of the utilities that serve most Americans, this is rarely what happens.” — @nickbowlin.bsky.social

“A novel with lightly fictionalized versions of people I was aware of as contemporaries at university who went on to run the country. Abandoned after I realized I couldn’t face the prospect of thinking about these people. (2023)” —Adam Smyth

“Neither the president nor his supporters, it seems fair to say, sense any moral or legal contradiction between ‘saving’ EI Salvador and subverting Nicaragua—between defending the hemisphere and invading a hemispheric neighbor.” –T.D. Allman (January 1984)

“Despair is an occupational hazard for anyone who counts on government to deliver reform.” Thomas Frank on Trump’s second term.

“In the cellblock’s courtyard, we were made to stand in front of monitors that played footage from October 7 on a loop.” Emily Wilder reported from a humanitarian convoy to Gaza, originally published in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social.

“We have become strangers to American politics, because for too long we have refused to let it appear sufficiently strange to us.” Jason Blakely on political science’s failure to grasp Trumpism.

An interview with Richard E. Maltby Jr. about his fifty years writing cryptic crosswords for the magazine. buff.ly/wiPqvhc

Every month in our Findings column, Rafil Kroll-Zaidi presents a constellation of the most—and least—important scientific discoveries. buff.ly/ZuKNjnf

“If we view the current occupation through the lens of fifty years of U.S. policy, we can begin to construct a rationale for war that is not charming but at least has the benefit of coherence.” —Luke Mitchell (July 2004 ) harpers.org/archive/2004...

“Because oil fixers play such an important and sensitive role, they can accumulate extraordinary power with heads of state, who often bestow on them the title of presidential adviser and grant them use of a diplomatic passport.” – Ken Silverstein (March 2009)

From the January Harper’s Index. buff.ly/tPrULic

“Nguyen loves games. Their goals and scoring mechanisms can reorient him so completely that he likens the feeling to wholesale reinvention.” Dan Piepenbring on C. Thi Nguyen’s The Score. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“A database of books printed in English, in England, in 1609. Large spreadsheet; on completion, all sense of purpose evaporated. What is the point of this? Dormant file on desktop. (2010)” From a list of projects undertaken and abandoned by Adam Smyth.

“Oh, Little Debbie, do you know? How we dispose ourselves toward such an apprehension? How we lean out to it.” From “Aliens in Mingus,” a new story by David Searcy.

“In slot-machine experiments, we identified cognitive features of human gambling addiction, such as illusion of control, gambler’s fallacy, and loss chasing.” From a preprint study conducted by the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology.

“Museum growth seems to enjoy something like the benefit of the clergy. An expanding American art museum—a sacred space where many have the closest thing to a religious experience they will ever feel—is still innocent until proven guilty.” —Jackson Arn

“There’s a quietly growing body of evidence showing that for years electric and gas utilities have been taking in more profits than they need to cover their costs and keep investors happy, at great consequence to Americans.” — @nickbowlin.bsky.social

“She asks me to use my fingers on her, but I plead with her otherwise. She sighs and reads a book about medieval punishments on peasants.” From Are People Out There, by Shane Kowalski @dieddisappointed.bsky.social.

“Wonkish blindness to the power of MAGA is a direct result of neglecting the art of interpretation.” Jason Blakely on political science’s failure to grasp Trumpism.

“Such times can be piled high and arranged like flavored ice cream in a fancy dish, and these were.” From Diane Williams, originally published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern @mcsweeneys.net.

“Like an anti-LBJ, Trump reminds the world every day what presidential power can do—the institutions it can wreck—when it is administered resolutely and with a little bit of daring.” Thomas Frank on liberal despair in Trump’s second term.

“Given the public fervor about the case, the state’s decision about how to handle it should not have been a surprise. I was, nevertheless, surprised.” Rosa Lyster on the trial of the Sycamore Gap killers. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Given what life is like now for serious writers in America, feeling a certain soul-soreness on looking back is difficult to avoid.” Vince Passaro on Gerald Howard’s The Insider, Malcolm Cowley, and the the American canon.

“‘All the polling I’ve seen,’ Jonathan Greenblatt, current head of the ADL, says, ‘suggests this is not a left–right gap, folks . . . it’s young and old. . . . We really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem.’” On Charlie Kirk and the GOP’s cracked consensus on Israel.

“Chaos reigns. A churning vastness beyond immense. A void beyond empty. Beyond filling. No progress therein. No matter what he thinks, wishes, or pretends.” Adapted from Slaveroad, by John Edgar Wideman.