Not Even Past | The Point Magazine

As foreign observers from Tocqueville onward have noted, Americans like to think of themselves as forward-looking and self-reliant. But in the South, where history is cluttered by shameful episodes like slavery, Jim Crow, Reconstruction and inglorious defeat in war, to focus on the future can become almost a psychological necessity.

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Meaning a Life | The Point Magazine

Along with George’s Selected Letters, Meaning a Life is the only prose account of the Oppens’ composite life as they understood it. Inside that story Mary has nested another—a rare story of imagination, companionship and love becoming mysteriously and beautifully aligned.

John Palattella·Oct 19, 2020·18 min read

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The Group | The Point Magazine

If McCarthy’s critics thought the Vassar girls were pitifully naïve and shallow—about sex as about many other things—they might have recognized that what happens to any of these women cannot ruin the faith they have and the pleasure they take in their own experiences; and in this alone they must have had more to teach us than they were ever given credit for.

Apoorva Tadepalli·Oct 19, 2020·18 min read

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On Integration | The Point Magazine

Not only was Cruse dubious about the plausibility of eradicating prejudice from the souls of whites, but he believed that such a project—inevitably focused on interracial settings and the individuals who inhabit them—was of little concrete use to the largely unintegrated communities that were, and still are, paying the steepest price for the country’s discriminatory history.

Jesse McCarthy, Jon Baskin·Oct 19, 2020·19 min read

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We All Deserve to Heal | The Point Magazine

Even when we are not providing the sympathetic ear for personal stories, the work of sex work is active listening.

Yin Q·Oct 19, 2020·13 min read

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Lovers in the Hands of a Patient God | The Point Magazine

It was hard for me to believe, at first, that spiritual debates in the American colonies, say, or the conventions of mass-market storytelling could tell me anything about my love life. But they did. How had I missed it? Probably because what they have to offer is so counterintuitive,and maybe even something of a scandal: that here in America, the Land of the Will, it can be good—very good, crucially important even—not to will.

S. G. Belknap·Oct 19, 2020·63 min read

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Issue 23 | The Point Magazine

The annotated table of contents below offers a sneak peek at what’s in issue 23. To get the issue delivered straight to your door, subscribe now. […]

The Editors·Oct 19, 2020·5 min read