Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics: Volume 5, Issue 1

Liberties is an independent quarterly journal of ideas that publishes serious, stylish, and controversial essays about significant issues in culture and politics.

In the Fall 2024 issue of Liberties: Sean Wilentz bluntly defines the stakes of this election; Katherine C. Epstein laments the death of research and its consequences for our culture; Ryan Ruby presides over the unlikely meeting of Emily Dickinson and Franz Kafka; Mark Edmondson diagnoses the fever in contemporary politics; Sohrab Ahmari exposes the sordid depths to which rightwing extremism has sunk; Jonathan Zimmerman pushes back against the opponents of higher education; Jack M. Balkin and Sanford Levinson argue that “We The People” is not as clear as it looks; William Deresiewicz describes what is absent from social relations in America; Ramachandra Guha introduces the founding poet of the environmental movement, Rabindranath Tagore; Ange Mlinko resurrects the art of Amy Clampitt; Steven B. Smith reveals what is truly revolutionary about our sixteenth president; in Teaching Ellison by Annie Abrams: A high school teacher, a great writer, and how to live; Celeste Marcus on a film, a great director, and the rise of fascism; Leon Wieseltier examines the grotesque intellectual underpinnings of Trumpism and Vanceism; and new poetry from David Grossman, Erica McAlpine and Devin Johnston.

Liberties features essays from leading op-ed writers and scholars, award-winning and well-known non-fiction and fiction writers, next generation rising talents, and poets from around the world.

There's a reason why cultural warriors, political leaders, opinion makers, and engaged citizens from across political and cultural spectrum read and cherish Liberties.

Sean Wilentz is the Geoirge Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University and the author, among many books, of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln.

Katherine C. Epstein is an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden.

Ryan Ruby is a writer living in Berlin. He is the author of The Zero and The One, a novel.

David Grossman's new book, The Thinking Heart: On Israel and Palestine, will appear in the spring.

Mark Edmondson is University Professor at the University of Virginia and the author most recently of The Age of Guilt: The Super-Ego in the On-line World.

Sohrab Ahmari's most recent book is Tyranny, Inc.

Devin Johnston is a poet who teaches at St. Louis University and the author most recently of Dragons.

Jonathan Zimmerman is Professor of the History of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the author, among other books, of Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools.

Jack M. Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale University and the author, among other books, of Constitutional Redemption: Political Faith in an Unjust World.

Sanford Levinson is the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law at the School of Law at the University of Texas in Austin and the author, among other books, of Our Undemocratic Constitution.

William Deresiewicz is the author of The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society.

Ramachandra Guha's new book, Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism, has recently been published.

Erica McAlpine is Associate Professor of English at Oxford and the author of The Country Gambler, a collection of poems.

Ange Mlinko is a poet and critic who teaches at the University of Florida. She has published six collections of poetry.

Steven B. Smith is Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science and Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and the author, among many books, of Modernity and Its Discontents.

Annie Abrams teaches high school English. She is the author of Shortchanged.

Leon Wieseltier is the editor of Liberties.

Celeste Marcus is the managing editor of Liberties.