This Is Critical
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This Is Critical
Fearless, sophisticated culture criticism for all generations. Nothing is off-limits, nothing dumbed down. With American culture on the rocks, we're split into fake "wars" about everything from avocados to bicycles to medical masks. It's time we took a critical lens to every facet of our shared expe...
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Why Bother with Critical Theory at All?
Over the last year, right-wing agitators have turned the academic discipline of Critical Race Theory into the hottest-button issue facing schools. The...
Home-Buying Needs a Gut Renovation
Homeownership has been synonymous with the American Dream since the New Deal. But after the 2008 financial crisis, millions of low-cost "starter house...
Our Bodies, Our Climate: How Heat Affects Humans
As heat waves rip across the globe, many climate pessimists are calling this "the coolest summer of the rest of our lives." Umair Irfan, climate repor...
The Twisted Road to Wellville
The $4.4 Trillion (with a T!) wellness industry has captured the minds, bodies, and wallets of many women. But what are we actually paying for? Longti...
When Our Organs Are Under Surveillance: Privacy After Roe
In the wake of Dobbs, the conversation about digital privacy — and how abortion seekers can protect their data from law enforcement — has exploded. Bu...
How to Change a Mind
In a time when people are more dug in than ever on partisan beliefs about the world, is it ever possible to change anybody's mind? Science journalist...
Cooling Off is a Hot Topic
Until the 1920s, public pools were all over this country, racially integrated and a popular summer activity for all. So what changed? Historian Jeff W...
Stagecraft, Storytelling, and the January 6th Hearings
Nearly a year and a half after the Capitol was breached, the January 6th Committee is making its case to Congress and the nation on TV. But how effect...
Defying Digital Hate
For women, abusive messages from strangers are simply the cost of using social media platforms. But according to Imran Ahmed, Founder & CEO of the Cen...
The Bleak Ideology of Food Crazes
It seems like you can't swing a spatula without hitting a claim that eating this way will make you happier, stronger, and more productive. As it turns...
The Best of Slimes
Today's slime toys are not your kid brother's ooey-gooey, neon-green puddles: they're unicorn-colored, calming, ASMR wonders. Science journalist Danie...
Here's to New Mrs. Robinson
In Julia May Jonas’s shocking debut novel Vladimir, the unnamed narrator — a 58-year-old female English professor — takes her lust for a younger colle...
Demystifying the Black Manosphere
Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse, hosts of the For Colored Nerds podcast, take Virginia on a wild ride through the wildly popular Internet subcultures o...
Tucker Flexes His Big Man Muscles
With his bozo ode to testosterone, Tucker Carlson joins the ranks of Mussolini, Berlusconi, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump in a pose of cartoon viri...
The Deeply Weird Mind of Elizabeth Holmes
In The Dropout, showrunner Liz Meriwether created a fictional version of audacious megascammer Elizabeth Holmes. How was Meriwether able to humanize a...
Will Musk Bring Gamergate Back to Twitter?
The news that Twitter has a new emperor got people riled up. But what will Elon Musk's takeover really mean for the platform? Game designer Brianna Wu...
Flipping the Script at Amazon
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York shocked the company and voted to unionize this month. It was a David-and-Goliath victory. Reporter Gloria O...
Dying to Live Forever
Journalist Peter Ward has spent years among the “immortalists,” studying the obscure things they do in hopes of living forever. But what happens when...
The Rise and Fall of a Campus Cult
Three years ago, reporters Ezra Marcus and James Walsh broke the story of con man Larry Ray and the Sarah Lawrence students he exploited. Now, a week...
Putin's Brain
Does a shadowy and dangerous Russian philosopher hold the key to the war in Ukraine? Ethnographer Benjamin Teitelbaum explains the life and work of Al...
Close Shaves
How we handle our body hair says as much about us as how we dress. Rebecca Herzig, professor and author of Plucked: A History of Hair Removal, explore...
The Dirtbag Wife
You can have a decent marriage, and also think your husband is a "snoring heap of meat". Virginia talks with Heather Havrilesky, author of Foreverland...
Getting Off the Brandwagon
"Brands aren't really real," argues author and brand savant Debbie Millman. At the same time, Coca-Cola once promised to teach the world to sing and n...
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Two Ways to Stop Putin
Fifteen years ago, Bill Browder became Putin's sworn enemy for fighting corruption in the Moscow business world. Now the author, activist, and Magnits...
Why Are We Still Dieting?
We have to stop. Ragen Chastain, the prominent Health at Every Size advocate, explains what we get wrong about weight loss, size stigma, and inclusive...
Saying Yes to Ulysses
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, Virginia’s dad and James Joyce scholar James Heffernan shares his love of the notori...
The Red-Pilling of Yoga World
The namaste folks are just about downward dog and world peace, right? Maybe not. Conspirituality podcast host and former cult member Matthew Remski re...
Work Will Break Your Heart — and You
We've all heard that following our passions will lead to a career we love, but labor journalist Sarah Jaffe contends that emotional fulfillment will n...
Game, Set, Vax
The world of sports is filled with pointless supplements and miracle cures but what happens when the disinformation—about everything from nutrition to...
DNA and the Age of Innocence
Law professor Ekow Yankah walks us through the advent of DNA evidence and the role of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit dedicated to exonerating the...
Is Ketamine All It's Cracked Up to Be?
We enter the k-hole with Dr. Bita Moghaddam, who explains how a dreamlike club drug became a depression treatment, and what you should know before goi...
Rewriting the History of Humanity
Dr. Paulette Steeves is trying to overturn the orthodoxy that humans have only been in the Western Hemisphere for roughly 12,000 years. In doing so, s...
An Oral History of the Attack on the Capitol
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries describes being on the floor of the House of Representatives during the Capitol attack. Fellow Congressman Jamie Raskin te...
Thinking Critically About Sex, Drugs, Hope, and the Climate
Deep-thinker and writer Maggie Nelson specializes in calibrating our cultural conversations. What is the right mix of hope and pessimism when talking...
The Very Emotional History of Crusaders and Witches
We get emotional with historian of emotions Richard Firth-Godbehere. Prepare to rethink everything you thought you knew about the motivations behind s...
Bye-Bye, Miss America, Bye
We unearth the origin story of our nation's most beloved — and reviled — beauty pageant and try to predict its future. Is it time to sunset the whole...
How to Live in a Post-Roe World
The real problem for the conservative Supreme Court justices hoping to overturn Roe v. Wade is how much reproductive medicine has changed since 1973....
How the Hallmark Channel Stole Christmas
We go way too deep on the schmaltzy movies that dominate cable every December with the Defector's David Roth, who has analyzed more than a hundred Hal...
Do Manners Matter?
Just in time for Thanksgiving: an exploration of manners, from the skating rink to the formal dinner party. Featuring a well-mannered member of the Em...