Save the Humans
Environmentalists are increasingly hugging people, not trees. Can solving climate change and achieving “climate justice” become the same thing?
Roundtables
A collection of 26 issues
Like Pushing an Elephant Into a Volkswagen
Writers who haven’t quit their day jobs, who cram in the writing hours around full-time work, discuss juggling office life, family, and creativity.
Catching Up With the Mp3 Bloggers
A decade ago, and then again five years later, we gathered a set of music bloggers who pioneered online music discovery—often to the chagrin of record labels. Now we reconvene to discuss the current state of listening to and reading about music online.
The T-Word
Media depictions of trans culture seem more prevalent than ever, but off-key representations sensationalize and injure their subjects. It’s time to change that. Five transgender people discuss how.
Harry Potter and the Shades of Twilight
A generation of women read the “Harry Potter” series as teens, “Twilight” in college, and “Fifty Shades of Grey” in their twenties. What is the cumulative effect?
A Lifetime’s One Regret
Does hindsight improve with age? People, ages five to 60, name their life's biggest mistake and what they learned.
Feeding the Beast
What should readers demand from their reporters? Find the shadows. Examine the complex problems. And captivate us. Journalists from Slate, Deadspin, ProPublica, NPR, and more on what readers should expect.
It’s the End of the World as We've Known It
Good old Earth was nearly destroyed, almost extinguished, and threatened with slaughter every hour in cinemas this summer. And yet, here we are. Our film critics pinpoint the collapse of the apocalypse genre.
Here's the Thing About Silver Linings
The Oscars are consistently irrational, but we wanted more for David O. Russell's fantastic Silver Linings Playbook. Film critics David Haglund, Pasha Malla, and Michelle Orange discuss why the movie so divided critical opinion, and became such a hit with audiences.
Home for the Holiday Tech Support
When the annual trip home becomes a customer-service visit to “fix the internet,” sometimes even bourbon can't save the day. We gathered a half-dozen of our favorite tech writers and editors to help anticipate the headaches of 2011.
The College Years
Armed with personal histories and transfer credits, grads from ’88 to ’15 hold a fall-semester seminar on majors, dorms, and the types of roommates to avoid.
To Make the Mouth Water
Integral to America's food obsession are the stylists who make it look good. Our panel of industry experts talks about photography and the art of arranging spaghetti strands.
Signposts in a Strange Land
"The luck of New Orleans," Walker Percy said, "is that its troubles usually have their saving graces." Seven authors and scholars discuss writing in the Big Easy, from Early Times to Katrina clichés.
Paper Tigers
Sports are stupid. Beautiful. Dull. Transcendent. Most of all, they're more than just games. We assembled sports writers, critics, freaks, and authors to tell us why.
Music Bloggers Redux
The music industry’s devil and savior bear the same name: the web. Five years later, we reconvene our panel of music blogfathers for a look into the future.
The Rules of Engagement
Welcome to wedding season, when lovers and their kinfolk celebrate true love and go into debt. We rounded up a panel of experts--authors, academics, and the recently betrothed--to discuss the current state of the Great American Wedding.
Love, Lies, and Online Dating
Either you've done it or you know someone who has: online dating, the scourge and savior of contemporary romance. A panel of experts discusses love 2.0.
New Fathers, Round III
Are you ruining your child's chances at future employment by blogging about his poop? By becoming a father yourself, do you finally understand your own dad? A look at the challenges of contemporary paternity.
The French Paradox
The French diet is back in the news—how do French women manage to enjoy chocolate, wine, cheese and bread without gaining weight? Several top French food bloggers weigh in on the phenomenon.
Street Art
It’s art, it’s play, it’s political protest—no matter what it’s called, street art is all around us, changing the face of our cities when no one’s looking. So what is it exactly? We round up some of the legends of the scene to talk about the history of street art, and where it’s headed next.
New Fathers, Round II
Twelve months ago a number of TMN contributors were becoming first-time dads—now it's time to check in and see how they're doing. A look back at a year of highs, lows, and Diaper Genies.
Mp3 Bloggers
There exists in the internet a galaxy of passionate music fans sharing their favorite songs, for free, with as many people as can find them. We talk to six of our favorite mp3 bloggers to find out what makes them tick, what problems they face, and what the record companies should do next.
Children’s Music
We've seen their drawings of Radiohead songs, they tell us the Strokes make their heads hurt "like 100 dogs," but how do we feel about their songs? A panel listens to children's music, weighing in on the state of the pint-sized.
New Fathers
For some reason not involving pods or alien harvests, a number of our writers are about to be fathers, or have recently become dads, and it seemed appropriate to convene a meeting of minds. A discussion of fears, frustrations, and why the name you've picked out for your kid will inevitably be mocked
Roundtable: Academia
What happens when you put five academics together and talk about the future of higher learning, the intricacies of tenure, and whether or not American high-schoolers are really learning anything?
Writing on the Web
We have an obvious stake in the state of writing on the web: it’s what we do, what we’re interested in, and something we care about. So when we began asking ourselves, ‘What is writing like on the web, today?’ we decided that rather than answer the question ourselves, it would be a lot more fun to k