Arts and Culture

Still from "My Friend Dahmer"

So can we empathize with people who become monsters? Derf Backderf — whose teenage self appears in Meyers' film — certainly thinks so.More

basketball rivals

During basketball camp in Fargo, North Dakota, cultural critic Chuck Klosterman made an enemy — for life. And maybe that was a bad idea.More

Still from trailer for "Voyeur" (Netflix)

A couple of years ago, journalist Gay Talese published “The Voyeur’s Motel,” the true story of a motel owner who spent more than 30 years spying on his guests while they had sex. The case is now the subject of a Netflix documentary called “Voyeur.”More

"That guy" at the office

Robert Sutton talks with Anne Strainchamps about his book, "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't."More

Tracing the linguistic history of A-hole.

Geoffrey Nunberg talks to Jim Fleming about his book, "Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, The First Sixty Years."More

At the rock show

An abridged version of Terry Gross' interview with Kiss rocker Gene SImmons from a 2002 episode of "Fresh Air."More

What makes a man turn asshole?

Aaron James talks to Steve Paulson about his book, "Assholes: A Theory."More

Geoff Dyer

Geoff Dyer talks about his book, "Zona: A Book About A Film About a Journey to a Room."More

"Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace wrote memorably about AA in his famous novel "Infinite Jest." Writer Marshall Boswell reads one of his favorite passages.More

General Electric dial

Kurt Vonnegut joined his brother, Bernard, at General Electric in the late 1940s. Ginger Strand explains how Kurt's time at G.E. influenced his fiction.More

Gazing into the future, forever

Canadian cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki makes the case that as a culture, we may for the first time in history be more focused on what is going to happen in the future than on what is happening right now.More

Ernest Hemingway and the many endings of "Farewell To Arms"

Hemingway rewrote the ending to his classic novel dozens of times. After he died, his grandson Sean Hemingway collected those other endings and published them in a new edition of the literary classic.More

Nesmith and the guys

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember the Monkees, the pop group with a hit TV show. Michael Nesmith wore the green stocking cap. Since then, he’s reinvented his career several times over. He (sort of) invented country rock. And the music video.More

Felicia Day at Comic Con in 2011

Web video superstar Felicia Day talks about how the Internet allowed her to use her weirdness to achieve her dreams of becoming an actress and to fulfill her creative ambitions.More

Addicted to avoiding stuff

Is procrastination just a bad habit? Or is it something worse, like a vice? Jennifer Baker waxes philosophical about the dark side of putting things off.More

Setting goals

Chrisoula Andreou offers some strategies that can help us stop putting things off.More

Procrastinating while writing.

When it comes to writing, it's easy to procrastinate. But Canadian philosopher Mark Kingwell has managed to avoid that temptation.More

Palestine

Carlos Fraenkel wanted to take philosophy out into the streets, so he met with students at Palestinian and Egyptian universities, and found that Plato, Maimonides and other great philosophers can open up a culture of conversation and debate.More

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