Cleavemark

Cleavemark

Poetry. “A genie of suggestion and evocation, Stephanie Schlaifer handles the half-said and, even more important, the half-unsaid with an acrobatic delicacy. The most daily objects—sugar, fog—are recombined into an unprecedented domesticity in which the foreign, the strange, the uncanny are perfectly at home. Vivid and multiplicitous, it’s a beautiful book that keeps on opening.”—Cole […]

Liking Ike

In his book Liking Ike David Haven Blake, PhD ’94, argues that it was Dwight D. Eisenhower, not JFK, who was the first politician to harness the power of advertising and celebrity culture for his political campaigns.
City on Fire

City on Fire

A detective story about a New York ­University ­student who is shot in ­Central Park.
Reading in the Dark

Reading in the Dark

‘Reading in the Dark’ studies horror in children’s literature, an often-neglected genre, with contributions from Rebecca A. Brown, Justine Gieni, Holly Harper, and Emily L. Hiltz.

Contrary Motion

Alum Andy Mozina, MA ’94, PhD ’98, writes about harpist Matt Grzbc, who is currently floundering in all aspects of his life. But he has his hopes pinned on an upcoming audition for the St. Louis Symphony. Will he rise to the occasion or will his fears of failure pan out?
Thief in the Interior

Thief in the Interior

“To experience [Phillip B. William’s] poetry is to encounter a lucid, unmitigated humanity, a voice for whom language is inadequate, yet necessarily grasped, shaped and consumed. His devout and excruciating attention to the line and its indispensable music fuses his implacable understanding of words with their own shadows.” —Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Boston Review
Commodore Levy

Commodore Levy

By all accounts, Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jewish commodore in the U.S. Navy, was both a principled and pugnacious man. On his way to becoming a flag officer, he was subjected to six courts-martial and engaged in a duel, all in response to antisemitic taunts and harassment from his fellow officers. Yet he never […]
After Many Days

After Many Days

Shirley Perry, AB ’50, joined the CIA after seeing a cryptic message about jobs at a “government agency.” Here she recounts her time as a spy and other adventures in her life.