Harper's Magazine

09/10/2025

“The nutria’s cardinal sin, however, is gluttony. It eats like it breeds: hellaciously.”

Nathaniel Rich () reports from a Louisiana swamp-rat rodeo.

A swamp-rat slaughter on the bayou

09/10/2025

“It seems clear that the principle driving the ESA movement is the right of parents to choose the best education for their children. … But it cannot change the fact that the underlying principle of education in a democracy is the right of a student to learn.”

A new frontier in American education

09/10/2025

“I’ve realized that I wasn’t such a good mother. It’s not enough to love your children, that’s too easy, and I think I’m completely selfish.”

Catherine Breillat from I Only Believe in Myself from Semiotext(e).

September 2025 Issue [Readings] Cinéaste and Answered Download PDF Adjust Share by Murielle Joudet, From an interview with the film director Catherine Breillat that will appear in I Only Believe in Myself, which will be published next month by Semiotext(e). Translated from the French by Christine P...

09/10/2025

“Rather than narrowing the definition of ‘anti-Semitism,’ the history Mazower so artfully tells suggests the possibility of a more capacious understanding.”

Daniel May reviews On Antisemitism: A Word in History.

On the meanings of anti-Semitism

09/10/2025

“The in-between woman finds the message of empowerment through s*x infinitely confusing. Like a snake eating its own tail.”

From “Girl Talk,” a new story by Weike Wang.

September 2025 Issue [Story] Girl Talk Download PDF Adjust Share by Weike Wang, Painting by Dror Cohen for Harper’s Magazine The sauna is a well-lit room with many wood slats. The walls are wood slats (vertical) and the same kind of wood slats come together (horizontally) to make a two-tiered rect...

09/09/2025

“Rather than seeing wisdom as a distinct human aspiration, requiring its own calisthenics and cultivation, there persists a strange belief that intelligence and knowledge alone will lead, through some secret orthogenesis, to moral clarity.” —Meghan O’Gieblyn

September 2025 Issue [Easy Chair] None the Wiser Download PDF Adjust Share by Meghan O’Gieblyn, There was a brief phase of Mark Zuckerberg’s MAGA glow up—sometime after the gold chain appeared, but before he started griping in the “manosphere” about censorship—when he began designing T-s...

09/09/2025

“FORSAKEN. Thrown, thrust into solitude. The most expressive word of its class: solitary, abandoned, alone, etc. It brings up the image of a weeping willow.”

From Milan Kundera’s “personal dictionary,” which will be released with Harper next month.

September 2025 Issue [Readings] By Definition Download PDF Adjust Share by Milan Kundera, From “89 Words,” which was first published in 1985 in Le Débat. The essay takes the form of a “personal dictionary,” a list of words that Kundera loved or was particularly “hung up on.” It will be ...

09/09/2025

“Some twelve million of these shells await recovery, and some are still live—a slight jostle or a stray glance might be all they need to explode. For minimal pay, the démineurs face death daily, lethargically.”

Dan Piepenbring reviews Zone Rouge.

September 2025 Issue [New Books] New Books Download PDF Adjust Share by Dan Piepenbring, Refugees, Shapuree Island, Bangladesh, October 14, 2017 © Moises Saman/Magnum Photos In Astra Taylor’s 2008 documentary Examined Life, the philosopher Peter Singer paces a stretch of Fifth Avenue plastered wi...

09/09/2025

“I don’t imagine that by talking about my s*xual desires I am bravely sounding my inner depths or liberating my true self. Desire’s just a vehicle for something much more important. What’s Chicken Little to do if the sky really is falling?”

Michael Robbins on kink in dark times

Kink in dark times

09/09/2025

“What is the day today? Tuesday. What is the news? Terrible. Desolate.”

Deborah Levy from a June issue of the Observer.

September 2025 Issue [Readings] Journey to the Temple Download PDF Adjust Share by Deborah Levy, From a June issue of the English newspaper the Observer. Everyone was talking about the thunderstorm in London. Yet she had slept through the storm. It was as if it had never happened, an event she had l...

09/08/2025

A selection of artworks which were included in the Armory Show 2025, which was on view last weekend in New York City⁠
⁠
1. “Nefertiti as Elizabeth ‘A Reprise,’” by David Alekhuogie, whose work was on view with Yancey Richardson. Courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York City ⁠
2. Longilone, by Tatiana Blass, whose work was on view with Albuquerque Contemporanea. Courtesy the artist and Albuquerque Contemporanea, Brazil ⁠
3. Interruption 8: Integration, by Brittney Leeanne Williams, whose work was on view with Alexander Berggruen © The artist. Courtesy the artist and Alexander Berggruen, New York City ⁠
4. Dancing with Tigers, by Nick Farhi, whose work was on view with Europa. Courtesy the artist and Europa, New York City⁠
5. Deepwoods Romance, by Sophia Heymans, whose work was on view with Shrine . Courtesy the artist and Shrine, New York City ⁠
6. Four Animals, by Rae Klein, whose work was on view with Nicodim. Courtesy the artist and Nicodim

09/08/2025

For our April issue, Emily Harnett reported on Carlos Acutis, who was canonized yesterday.

“By elevating a teen coder to sainthood, the Church suggests that science and technology need not be at odds with faith.”

The canonization of Carlo Acutis