Yale University Press

We live in an age flooded with information, yet we are starved of trust. Distraction, disinformation, and identity-driven division erode our shared humanity. James K.A. Smith argues this is not just a cultural or technological problem but a spiritual one, and more knowledge won’t fix it. Instead, we need a shift from information to wisdom—cultivated through contemplation, sil...

Listen to Alyce Mahon, author of Dorothea Tanning: A Surrealist World, and Mark Polizzotti, author of Why Surrealism Matters, have a wide-ranging conversation about the history of Surrealism with a particular focus on American artist Dorothea Tanning.

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In ancient Athens, frustrations and disillusionment with the political system may have helped fuel the rise of ostracism—a system that allowed citizens to exile powerful figures seen as threats to the political order. Through the story of Themistocles, this essay explores how early democracy responded to public dissatisfaction and asks whether modern systems can adapt in simi...

K. L. H. Wells—

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This semiquincentennial of the establishment of the United States of America is being celebrated throughout the country by a slew of exhibitions, reenactments, documentaries and publications that focus on the Revolutionary War as well as many other chapters of Am...

The following is adapted from the the chapter “An Eloquent Essayist” in Nicholas Fox Weber’s biography Anni Albers: A Life.

Almost immediately after arriving at Black Mountain, Anni began to write. Her essays, some of them specific to wea...