Criticism Work

Perhaps you want to be nicer to yourself but don’t really know how to get there. Or maybe you’re someone who assumes self-criticism is a permanent part of your personality. Rest assured you’re not alone. Millions of people struggle with the toll that excessive self-criticism takes on their minds, energy levels, jobs, and relationships. And problems with self-talk vary dramatically from one person to the next: they can appear as mild but persistent inner criticism, full-blown self-loathing, or the pain of internalized oppression or abuse.

Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also a probing appraisal of American racial politics. Offering an incisive look at racism in American movies and a vision of America's self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin challenges the underlying assumptions in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.

Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.

Since it first opened on Broadway in September 1964, Fiddler on the Roof has constantly been onstage somewhere, including five Broadway revivals, four productions on London's West End, and thousands of schools, army bases, and countries from Argentina to Japan. Barbara Isenberg interviewed the men and women behind the original production, the film, and significant revivals.

Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios, production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and sell them. Legendary writing teacher John Truby provides a guide to understanding the major genres of the story world.

The life of Franz Schubert has been a gift to romantically inclined biographers: the beautiful, brilliant, modest boy who sprang to fully fledged genius at the age of sixteen; the quintessential ‘artist in a garret’, entirely consumed by his art and living a hand-to-mouth existence in Vienna (home of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven); the gentle, cheerful, convivial young man who prized friendship almost as highly as music itself; the unworldly poet from whom great music poured like water from a fountain; the unrecognized master who died almost penniless at the age of 31.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung contains the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs—the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s—edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rock critics, Greil Marcus.

Brace yourself, Frankie’s back, and he’s more outspoken and brilliantly inappropriate than ever. There are fears that this year could see the start of a double-dip recession, or worse still a double-dip-with-misery-sprinkles and f**k-where’s-my-job?-sauce. Why not chuckle into the howling...

A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach's creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art.

This program is read by the author. "A necessary discourse about power and control, and who ultimately has a voice versus whose is often stifled." —Preston D. Mitchum, LGBTQIA attorney, activist, and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University The first major case for cancel culture as a...

Thirty years have passed since Cornel West's book Race Matters rose to the top of the bestseller lists in 1993. Yet his book remains as relevant as ever to American culture-even more so, if one considers its influence on contemporary racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, prison justice, and the fight for police reform. Prophetic Leadership and Visionary Hope looks back to the original 1993 text and forward into the future of racial understanding and healing in our current century.

“The queer memoir you’ve been waiting for”—Carmen Maria Machado Grace Lavery is a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and 100 percent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster. As soon as she solves her “penis problem,” she begins receiving anonymous letters...

In Art as Information Ecology, Jason A. Hoelscher offers not only an information theory of art but an aesthetic theory of information. Applying close readings of the information theories of Claude Shannon and Gilbert Simondon to 1960s American art, Hoelscher proposes that art is information in its aesthetic or indeterminate mode—information oriented less toward answers and resolvability than toward questions, irresolvability, and sustained difference. In this way, art constitutes information that remains in formation---a difference that makes a difference that keeps on differencing.

Hans Memling, a painter from Flanders, is the holder of an unfortunate record. He painted a triptych, The Last Judgment, commissioned by Medici banker Angelo Tani. The paintings were intended for a new chapel in Fiesole in Tuscany, near the city of Florence. However, in April 1472, the ship on which they were being transported from Bruges to Florence was intercepted by Polish privateer and Danzig Town Council leader Paul Beneke.

How can art help us make sense of the world? With the same intelligence that animates his poetry, Michael Robbins addresses this weighty question while contemplating the idea of how strange it is that we need art at all. Ranging from Prince to Def Leppard, Lucille Clifton to Frederick Seidel, Robbins's mastery of poetry and popular music shines in Equipment for Living. His singular ability to illustrate points with seemingly disparate examples will change the way you listen to music and read poetry.

Journey through 3,000 years of art and history to shine a light on the hidden stories behind the world's most famous works of art.

"I dreamed of New York, I am going there." On May 31, 1953, twenty-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at "the intellectual fashion magazine" Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next twenty-six days, the bright...

DeConstructing Criticism is the story of Alex, a gifted creative, who has trouble receiving criticism. Each chapter covers a different angle of the creative process as Alex prepares for a presentation, giving the listener useful tools for filtering feedback and creating their best work.

Cultural criticism and pop culture history intertwine in this important book, which dissects how hip hop has sidelined Black women's identity and emotional well-being. Do you have a “ride or die chick” in your life? A “ride or die chick” is a Black woman who holds down her family and...

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.