Science
The Atlantic
Kafka's Not Supposed to Make Sense - Kafka died a century ago this year at the age of 40, and since then a mighty industry has arisen to deliver all of the messages that Kafka said would never be delivered.
It would be foolish to claim that Kafka learned his metaphysical wordplay from Jewish texts alone. He read widely: Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He admired the understated prose of Anton Chekhov and Heinrich von Kleist. He read literary magazines that published cutting-edge work, too. Still, his regular reading of the Bible—nightly, during some periods of his life—contributed a laconic quality to his classical prose that doesn’t make him anachronistic; it makes him original.
10+ min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
A Novel Without Characters
Rachel Cusk's lonely experiment: Parade. Her new book, a novel of elusive vignettes, it can be seen as an allegory about both fiction and the gendered shapes of selfhood.
10 min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
THE GLACIER RESCUE PROJECT
Can the mighty Thwaites be stopped from tumbling into the sea?
10+ min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
The Industry That Ate America
The long and lurid history of lobbying
10+ min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
Tornado Watch
How Lee Isaac Chung reimagined Twister, one of the biggest climate-disaster thrillers of all time
8 min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
Too Cute to Fail
Koalas are threatened by climate change, cars, and chlamydia. Can Australia find a way to protect its most beloved animal?
10+ min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
THE FIRST THREE MONTHS
What I saw inside the government’s response to COVID-19
10+ min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
THE VALLEY
Searching for the future in the most American city
10+ min |
July - August 2024
The Atlantic
THE AIRPORT-LOUNGE ARMS RACE
Inside the ever more extravagant competition to lure affluent travelers
8 min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
Hypochondria Never Dies
The diagnosis is officially gone, but health anxiety is everywhere.
9 min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
Miranda July's Weird Road Trip
The author's midlife-crisis novel is full of estrangement, eroticism, and whimsy.
9 min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
The Wild Blood Dynasty
What a little-known family reveals about the nation's untamed spirit
9 min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
The Engrossing Darkness of The Crow
Can a cult hit point the way forward for the beleaguered comic-book movie?
5 min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
The Godfather of American Comedy
The funniest people on the planet think there's no funnier person than Albert Brooks.
10+ min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
The History My Family Left Behind
A gun, a lynching, and an exodus from Mississippi
10+ min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
Ozempic or Bust
America has been trying to address the obesity epidemic for four decades now. So far, each new \"solution\" has failed to live up to its early promise.
10+ min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
THE ART OF SURVIVAL
In living with cancer, Suleika Jaouad has learned to wrench meaning from our short time on Earth.
9 min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
DEMOCRACY IS LOSING THE PROPAGANDA WAR
AUTOCRATS IN CHINA, RUSSIA, AND ELSEWHERE ARE NOW MAKING COMMON CAUSE WITH MAGA REPUBLICANS TO DISCREDIT LIBERALISM AND FREEDOM AROUND THE WORLD.
10+ min |
June 2024
The Atlantic
Before Facebook, There Was BlackPlanet
An alternative history of the social web
10+ min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
After the Miracle
Cystic fibrosis once guaranteed an early deathbut a medical breakthrough has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?
10+ min |
April 2024
The Atlantic
WILLIAM WHITWORTH 1937-2024
WILLIAM WHITWORTH, the editor of The Atlantic from 1980 to 1999, had a soft voice and an Arkansas accent that decades of living in New York and New England never much eroded.
6 min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
Christine Blasey Ford Testifies Again
Her new memoir doubles as a modern-day horror story.
9 min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
Is Theo Von the Next Joe Rogan?
Or is he something else entirely?
5 min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
Orwell's Escape
Why the author repaired to the remote Isle of Jura to write his masterpiece, 1984
10+ min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
What's So Bad About Asking Where Humans Came From?
Human origin stories have often been used for nefarious purposes. That doesn't mean they are worthless.
10 min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
Miranda's Last Gift
When our daughter died suddenly, she left us with grief, memories and Ringo.
10+ min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
CLASH OF THE PATRIARCHS
A hard-line Russian bishop backed by the political might of the Kremlin could split the Orthodox Church in two.
10+ min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
THE MAN WHO DIED FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS
Chugging through Pacific waters in February 1942, the USS Crescent City was ferrying construction equipment and Navy personnel to Pearl Harbor, dispatched there to assist in repairing the severely damaged naval base after the Japanese attack.
10+ min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
The Great Serengeti Land Grab
How Gulf princes, wealthy tourists, and conservation groups displacing the Maasai people
10+ min |
May 2024
The Atlantic
Saint Dismas
Carlito held one end of the rope, Omar the other.
10+ min |