“There’s no point in going into a field like English literature unless you’re going to have fun with it.”

The Harvard critic recalls feeling genuinely anxious about how things would turn out for the hero of “The Magic Mountain.”

China is becoming progressively more open and entrepreneurial, but Western corporations shouldn’t assume they can export their traditional business models there.

Creative writing programs have left a dominant stamp on American literature in recent decades. The Harvard professor is glad they’re around.

Louis Menand recalls the most vehement reactions his essays have ever gotten—including one from a reader who didn’t realize Menand agreed with him.

A conversation with Booz & Company’s Chairman for Greater China.

Louis Menand isn’t sure the cognitive science approach to literature has yielded much of interest so far, but thinks there may be “some surprises around the corner.”

Not on purpose, says the “Marketplace of Ideas” author. But the system is starting to hurt them nonetheless.

The “Marketplace of Ideas” author suggests steps American colleges can take to become more ideologically diverse.

The “problem of general education” haunts any college trying to design a core curriculum, but standardizing across schools is a poor solution.

Whether we’re in postmodernism, post-postmodernism, or some other phase, one thing we’re not in is cultural decline.

The kind of literary criticism that Lionel Trilling practiced, which assumed that national literatures reflected deep national values, is dead now.

The audience that the New Yorker critic has in mind is “somebody who’s like yourself, but in a completely different discipline.”

A conversation with the Harvard University English professor.

What excites the legendary computer scientist about the future? In a word: graphics.

The terrorist attack David Gelernter experienced in 1993 left his body injured, but his mind unfazed.

The basic user interface of our personal computers has stayed the same for a generation. How can we move beyond the desktop?

How spreading sensitive information over thousands of computers could revolutionize digital security.

The “Judaism: A Way of Being” author makes the case for Judaism as the most important intellectual development in Western history.

Throughout the history of Jewish culture, the image has been inseparable from the word.

A conversation with the writer, artist, and Yale computer scientist.

Beauty entrepreneurs Malin and Goetz reflect on how their sexuality has influenced their experience of starting a business.

On being in business with a life partner: “We’ve had our fair share of Sid and Nancy moments, but there is nobody in the world I trust more.”

Should staffing decisions come from the gut? It’s debatable.

Organic ingredients might only be .02 percent of an “organic” product.

A relationship with a bar of soap turned into in a high-end skin care venture.

Sometimes word-of-mouth can create a more exclusive business.

A conversation with the co-founders of (Malin+Goetz).

Life is full of heartbreak, but the actor and former High Times editor tries not to sweat the small stuff.

“As wild as you think it is, as wild as you imagine it is—it’s even wilder.” says former High Times Magazine editor John Buffalo Mailer. “It is a crazy Willy […]