Interviews

Play by Play: James McConkey on a “Compassionate Irony” and “Spiritual Yearning” That Underline Anton Chekhov's Works
Play by Play: James McConkey on a “Compassionate Irony” and “Spiritual Yearning” That Underline Anton Chekhov's Works
In the spring of 1890, Anton Chekhov did something that baffled everyone who knew him. He was thirty years old, already celebrated as one of Russia's finest writers, and suffering... Read more...
Federico Pacchioni
Poetry in Motion (Picture): Federico Pacchioni Reviews The “Vigor and Originality” of Federico Fellini's Films
In the winter of 1959, Federico Fellini arrived on the set of what would become La Dolce Vita with a script that was, by most accounts, still unfinished. His producer, Dino... Read more...
Mind Over (Dark) Matter: Irwin Shapiro Says Albert Einstein's Theories Have Stood The Test of Time (So Far)
Mind Over (Dark) Matter: Irwin Shapiro Says Albert Einstein's Theories Have Stood The Test of Time (So Far)
Consider the strangeness of this everyday miracle: each time a GPS receiver locks onto a position or a spacecraft adjusts its trajectory across millions of miles of near-emptiness, it is... Read more...
From Old Vienna to New Philosophy: Allan Janik Analyzes Ludwig Wittgenstein's Early Thought
From Old Vienna to New Philosophy: Allan Janik Analyzes Ludwig Wittgenstein's Early Thought
In the winter of 1919, an Austrian prisoner of war sat in an Italian detention camp and put the finishing touches on a manuscript he had been writing in the... Read more...
Rosamund Bartlett
A Russian Life: Rosamund Bartlett On Leo Tolstoy's Transition From Writing to Social Activism
In the early hours of November 10, 1910, a frail eighty-two-year-old man slipped out of his estate at Yasnaya Polyana in the darkness, leaving behind his wife, his family, and... Read more...
Infinite Genius: Amir Aczel Adds Up Georg Cantor's "Novel and Powerful" Methods of Proof
Infinite Genius: Amir Aczel Adds Up Georg Cantor's "Novel and Powerful" Methods of Proof
In the winter of 1884, Georg Cantor suffered his first complete mental breakdown. He was thirty-nine years old and had spent the previous decade constructing one of the most radical... Read more...
Allen Josephs
¡Ole! Allen Josephs Says Ernest Hemingway's Bond to Spain Was No Bull
In the summer of 1925, a group of American and British expatriates traveled from Paris to Pamplona for the Festival of San Fermín. They drank heavily, watched bullfights, and fell... Read more...
Mutation Versus Natural Selection: Masatoshi Nei Challenges Charles Darwin's Evolution Theory
Mutation Versus Natural Selection: Masatoshi Nei Challenges Charles Darwin's Evolution Theory
The summer Charles Darwin spent on the Galapagos Islands in 1835 lasted just five weeks. He was 26, seasick for much of the voyage, and not yet sure what he... Read more...
Daniele Moyal-Sharrock
“Revolutionary Insight”: Daniele Moyal-Sharrock Explains Why ‘On Certainty’ is Ludwig Wittgenstein's “Neglected Masterpiece”
In the spring of 1951, Ludwig Wittgenstein lay dying of prostate cancer in his doctor's house in Cambridge. He had spent the final months of his life doing what he... Read more...
Helge Kragh
In A Class of His Own: Helge Kragh on How Paul Dirac “Changed the Course of Fundamental Physics”
In 1928, Paul Dirac sat alone in his rooms at Cambridge and wrote down an equation. He was twenty-five years old and had set himself a problem that had defeated... Read more...
Peter J. Bowler
Beyond A Bug's Life: Peter J. Bowler on How Charles Darwin's Theory "Evolved" Over Time
On the morning of June 18, 1858, Charles Darwin opened a letter from a naturalist named Alfred Russel Wallace and felt the ground shift beneath him. Wallace, working independently in... Read more...
In James Joyce's Wake: Margot Norris on The Irish Writer's "Play with Narration and Language"
In James Joyce's Wake: Margot Norris on The Irish Writer's "Play with Narration and Language"
In 1922, shortly after the publication of Ulysses, customs officials in the United States were still seizing and burning copies of the novel as obscene material. One bewildered reader reportedly... Read more...