Essays and Reviews

The Coming Revival of Democracy, Liberties

When Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig Had Lunch Together, Liberties

Operation Nietzsche, Commonweal

On Solvej Balle’s ‘On the Calculation of Volume’, The Washington Post

The Role of the Modern Writer: On Thomas Mann, The Yale Review

On Vigdis Hjorth’s ‘If Only’, The Literary Review

On Christian Kracht’s ‘Eurotrash’, The Washington Post

Out of Sorts: On Tokarczuk, The Literary Review

When Hitchens Was Good, Commonweal

Paranoid Humanoid: On Kafka, The Literary Review

Why Are We Still Doing This?, Commonweal

The Good European, Liberties

What Will Survive of Him: On Martin Amis, Commonweal

The Rootless, Brilliant and Tragic Life of Joseph Roth, The Washington Post

The Fiction That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Liberties Journal, Vol 2 #3

Why Read Fiction in a Bad World?, Gawker

Dilla Time Captures an Off-Beat Genius, Gawker

The Bad Book: On Michael Schur’s Moral Philosophy, Gawker

There Will be Blogs: On Andrew Sullivan, Commonweal

The Secular Magic of Kamel Daoud, New Lines Magazine

Without God or Reason: On Albert Camus, Commonweal

Habanero Hot: On Pankaj Mishra, American Purpose

Escape Artist: Henrik Ibsen, New York Review of Books

How Should One Live?: On Kierkegaard, The American Interest

What Might Have Been,Commonweal

Waiting for Fascism: Joseph Roth and Fictions of Weimar, The Point

A Sickness Unto Death: On George Scialabba, The American Interest

Life and Death in Bergamo, The American Interest

The Least British Shakespeare, The New Republic

Joseph Roth and the End of Europe’s Cosmopolitan Dream, LitHub

Citizen Mann, written for Thomas Mann House

The Sufferings of Nietzsche, Los Angeles Review of Books

The Awful Shapelessness of Loss, Los Angeles Review of Books

The Danish Tolstoy, New York Review of Books (Daily)

Mirth and Melancholy: On Machado de Assis, Los Angeles Review of Books

Darwin on Endless Trial, Los Angeles Review of Books

Flash and Lumber: On Elizabeth Hardwick, Los Angeles Review of Books

C. E. Morgan’s Great American Novel, Los Angeles Review of Books

Kafka: An End or a Beginning?, Los Angeles Review of Books

400 Years of Nonsense About Don Quixote, The New Republic

Me, Myself, and Hitler, Los Angeles Review of Books

Stefan Zweig and the Long Night’s Dawn, Los Angeles Review of Books

A Keeper of Love’s Flame: Regine Olsen and Søren Kierkegaard, Los Angeles Review of Books