Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Harper’s Magazine

@harpers.bsky.social

5.4K followers 39 following 790 posts

Since 1850. “America’s most interesting magazine” —New York Times Subscribe: harpers.org/save

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 21d

In our October issue: Seth Harp on Trump’s military parade; David Velasco on his friend Brent Sikkema; Rachel Pearson on empathy in medical education; Garth Greenwell on Giovanni’s Room; Nicole Flattery on Jane Bowles; and a story from Matthew Shen Goodman.

harpers.org/archive/2025...

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 6h

“The path forward will be populist, and it will need to address the great economic challenges that working-class Americans face.”

Ross Barkan responds to Andrew Cockburn’s report from Harper’s Magazine’s August issue.

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 7h

“Owens implied that their professions were suspicious and asserted, without evidence, ‘We know for a fact that psychiatrists have done some evil things.’”

From a lawsuit filed by Emmanuel Macron.

J’accuse!, by Harper’s Magazine

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 12h

“Reason, rationalism, individualism, the rejection of the past, the framing of custom as an obstacle, the idealization of progress and perpetual renewal: Bezos would recognize all of this, and perhaps nod in vigorous assent.” —Paul Kingsnorth

Critique of Pure Reason, by Paul Kingsnorth

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 14h

“How did I find dignity in a book that seems so determined to strip dignity away from its characters, especially its gay characters? Where did I find affirmation in a book so enamored of the abyss?”

@garthgreenwell.bsky.social on Giovanni’s Room.

Enamored of the Abyss, by Garth Greenwell

On the place of affirmation in art

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 17h

“You walk as long as it would have taken to drive home, and then longer. He stays a little too far ahead for you to catch up without running. You know, somehow, not to run.”

A new story from Matthew Shen Goodman.

Enjoy the Break, Demons, by Matthew Shen Goodman

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 1d

““By midday, the heat was ungodly. Not a drop of the predicted rain fell, and not a breeze blew.”

Seth Harp reports on Trump’s military parade and the state of the armed forces.

Mission Impossible, by Seth Harp

The sad state of the American armed forces

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 6d

“I hate Basel. It’s the most prideful of the fairs, swollen with wealth and haunted by its furiously repressed specter, scarcity. Mesopotamian corpses, stirred by the babble of trade, wander the halls wrapped in shrouds of extravagant malice.” —David Velasco

The Good Pervert, by David Velasco

A friend’s life, a brutal death

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 6d

“I was left with the depressing certainty that the post-9/11 era, which had begun just as I reached adulthood, would last for the rest of my life.”

Seth Harp reports on Trump’s military parade and the state of the armed forces.

Mission Impossible, by Seth Harp

The sad state of the American armed forces

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 6d

“The garments have shipped and the fabric
remaining accepts another use, a shape.
A tailor made thee. Then see it float away.”

From “Small Hours,” by Jana Prikryl in the Winter 2025 issue of @nimrodjournal.bsky.social.

Small Hours, by Jana Prikryl

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 6d

“To a close reader, which I was not, the story was a warning, or a map. Which was it? It began with a disappearance into a wood.”

From Estate, by Cynthia Zarin, which will be published next month by FSG.

Vanishing Acts, by Cynthia Zarin

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 7d

EMORI: Rain that leaks through the umbrella
FUCHIKUNUN: Rain that comes indoors
GUU: Rain that one encounters by coincidence or chance

From Water of the Sky: A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words, out next month with MIT Press (@mitpress.bsky.social).

Liquiddity, by Miya Ando

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 7d

“When the lottery was announced, I was working on a play. The play would take place backstage at a play.”

From Lauren Rothery’s novel, Television, which will be published by Ecco this December.

Drama Splice, by Lauren Rothery

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 7d

“Once you’ve read enough Jane Bowles, some real-life experiences—like the girls on the street with their eyes lit dangerously like stars—can be seen only through the prism of her fiction.”

Nicole Flattery on Jane Bowles’s spiritual transformations.

Never a Tourist, by Nicole Flattery

Jane Bowles’s spiritual transformations

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 7d

“Earis told me that, when he criticized the organization at a meeting in 2007, committee members were “literally booing” him as he spoke.”

Veronique Greenwood on a controversy in the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers.

A Change of Tune, by Veronique Greenwood

A revolution in English bell ringing

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 7d

“Empathy still has its skeptics. In my conversations with colleagues and students, many bristle at the implication that they need remedial education in how to feel.”

Rachel Pearson (@peopledoctor.bsky.social) on the place of empathy in medical education.

Bedside Manners, by Rachel Pearson

Can empathy be taught in medicine?

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 8d

“The open letter still stands and signifies, even if it did not stop the genocide. Brent’s life continues to resound for me like a percussive crash long after his body was perforated and discarded and his excesses, both sacred and profane, completed.” —David Velasco

The Good Pervert, by David Velasco

A friend’s life, a brutal death

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 8d

“‘Everything is frozen for you,’ said the French president on a phone call to the U.S. president. The Supreme Court upheld a Trump Administration freeze of $4 billion in foreign-aid payments.”

harpers.org/2025/09/mili...

Weekly Review, by Harper’s Magazine

The presidents of Turkey, South Korea, and France were made to wait due to the U.S. president’s motorcade. “Everything is frozen for you,” said the French president on a phone call to the U.S. preside...

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 8d

“In my view, astrology is a grande dame, exceedingly beautiful and coming from so far away that she can’t help but charm me. In the purely physical world, I see nobody whose attire can rival hers.”

André Breton in conversation with Jean Carteret and Roger Knabe.

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 8d

HIFU SAN–U: Merciless rain and wind that provoke a feeling of sorrow
ISOSHIGURE: Rain that falls on the coast or in the bay
JUU: Rain that falls at just the right time

From Water of the Sky: A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words, out next month with MIT Press.

Liquiddity, by Miya Ando

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 8d

“He swears he saw his soul ascend to the ceiling. It hit its head and looked down at what happened. It was too embarrassed to go to heaven and did a U-turn, so we’re still stuck with him.”

New fiction from Matthew Shen Goodman.

Enjoy the Break, Demons, by Matthew Shen Goodman

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 8d

“The modern American military is a much weaker and more debilitated force than Trump’s braggadocio, and the Defense Department’s gargantuan spending habits, might suggest.”

Seth Harp reports on Trump’s military parade and the state of the armed forces.

Mission Impossible, by Seth Harp

The sad state of the American armed forces

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 9d

“It is high time we accept that the new character of industrialized warfare has relieved us of the necessity of keeping a million or more of our young men in uniform indefinitely.”

John Fischer on the US’s standing army, from January 1945.

A Show of Force, by John Fischer

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 9d

“Some doctors worry that empathy will cloud their judgment. Some reject the project of empathy entirely, believing that emotional engagement with patients makes the lifelong work of attending to suffering unsustainable.” —Rachel Pearson (@peopledoctor.bsky.social)

Bedside Manners, by Rachel Pearson

Can empathy be taught in medicine?

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 9d

“Her work poses the question: Is it possible to change and yet remain entirely yourself? And another: If her characters can’t understand themselves, how can they ever hope to understand one another?”

Nicole Flattery on Jane Bowles.

Never a Tourist, by Nicole Flattery

Jane Bowles’s spiritual transformations

Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 9d

“Tech companies behave more like rapacious rentiers than proper capitalists. They’ve ground the internet’s once-untrammeled traffic to a halt, installing deceptively cheery tollbooths at every bridge and tunnel.” —Dan Piepenbring

New Books, by Dan Piepenbring

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure