News:

Congratulations to the winners of our annual short story prize! And thanks to judge Gina Frangello for choosing our winners.  Gina Frangello is the author of two critically acclaimed books of fiction, Slut Lullabies...[more]

This is my first issue as editor of The Common Review, and thus my maiden voyage as the author of this column. In fact, this is the first issue in the magazine’s nine-year history not under the editorial stewardship of Daniel...[more]

I have an idea. What if every soldier and politician were required to be a lit major? It sounds far fetched, I know. Textual critics would run the Pentagon. Generals and colonels commanding the tanks, Predator drones, and Green...[more]

Watching as “the crisis in the humanities” grows to epic proportions—370,000 Google hits by my last count—I think about other crises in my lifetime that have shaken Western civilization. Specifically, I recall the attack in...[more]

So the polar icecaps are melting at an alarming rate, Mount Kilimanjaro will be denuded of all its snow in twenty years, and a trash vortex twice the size of Texas swirls out in the Pacific between Hawaii and California,...[more]

His sole concern was to find out what they wanted him to confess, and then confess it quickly, before the bullying started anew. He confessed to the assassination of eminent Party members, the distribution of seditious pamphlets,...[more]

Like many reform movements that first began in the nation’s schools, this one started in the nation’s language arts classrooms under the auspices of reading experts. Teacher and principals from coast to coast point to the efforts...[more]