Lauren Michele Jackson
Lauren Michele Jackson is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, where her recent work includes an adventure through gamified stardom in The Sims and the racial politics of voice acting. She is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and a fellow at New America. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Awl, Chicago magazine, The New Inquiry, New York, The Point, Rolling Stone, Slate, and the Washington Post, among other publications. Her first book, the essay collection “White Negroes,” was published in 2019. She lives in Chicago.
The Case That Being Poor and Black Is Bad for Your Health
The public-health professor Arline T. Geronimus has spent a forty-year career researching how inequality takes a “weathering” toll on the body.
The Trials and Triumphs of Writing While Woman
From Mary Wollstonecraft to Toni Morrison, getting a start meant starting over.
Lana Del Rey’s New Album Searches for Transcendence
On “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd,” the artist asks lofty questions with an earnestness that’s sometimes sublime and sometimes a bit dippy.
Chris Rock’s Live Experiment in Saving Face
“Everybody fucking knows. . . . I got smacked, like, a year ago,” the comedian finally says at the end of his Netflix special, as if that’s not the reason we’re all here.
The Internet’s Richest Fitness Resource Is a Site from 1999
Exrx.net is little changed since the days of Yahoo GeoCities and dial-up and saying “www” aloud. Yet beneath its bare-bones interface is a deep physiological compendium.
“Yellowstone” ’s Epic TV Expansionism
The showrunner Taylor Sheridan has been given wide latitude to iterate on the world of the Dutton ranching family, but he’s best when honoring his Western’s melodramatic core.
The Rock Goes Back to Black
“Black Adam” and the slippery identities of Dwayne Johnson.
In Taylor Swift’s “Midnights,” the Easter Eggs Aren’t the Point
Fans treat her every song as a decoder ring, but it’s Swift’s vocal technique that gives her new album its power.
Namwali Serpell’s New Novel Reinvents the Elegy
In “The Furrows,” a brother vanishes beneath the waves, and resurfaces in a hundred guises.
Josephine Baker Was the Star France Wanted—and the Spy It Needed
When the night-club sensation became a Resistance agent, the Nazis never realized what she was hiding in the spotlight.
“Tell Me to Be Bette Midler, I Would Find a Way”: An Interview with Sam Richardson
The comedian discusses home-town comedy, the boundaries of joke-telling, Batman, and the eternal race question.
Alice Walker’s Journals Depict an Artist Restless on Her Laurels
As the writer counts honors and advances—and keeps tabs on rivals, lovers, and detractors—the drive to succeed is the drive to survive.
How Louie Simmons Defined the Extreme Sport of Power Lifting
The controversial founder of the gym Westside Barbell, who died in March, was the innovator of a go-hard-or-go-home culture of strength training.
The Zora Neale Hurston We Don’t Talk About
In the new nonfiction collection “You Don’t Know Us Negroes,” what emerges is a writer who mastered a Black idiom but seldom championed race pride.
The 1619 Project and the Demands of Public History
The ambitious Times endeavor, now in book form, reveals the difficulties that greet a journalistic project when it aspires to shift a founding narrative of the past.
Dave Chappelle, Netflix, and the Illusions of Corporate Identity Politics
The controversy over the comedian’s latest special is most telling not for its lessons on cancel culture or comedy but as a window on the streaming platform’s approach to so-called content.
Sally Rooney Gets Outside of People’s Heads
In her third novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” the Irish author observes her unhappy young protagonists from a notable distance.
The Void That Critical Race Theory Was Created to Fill
The movement’s architects saw the inadequacy of liberal solutions to racial injustice. Yet the term has become a lullaby by which liberals self-soothe.
Paul Mooney, Comedy’s Maestro of White America
Like his collaborator Richard Pryor, Mooney used the N-word as a form of comic expression. But it was whiteness that he made devastatingly easy to understand.
What We Want from Richard Wright
A newly restored novel tests an old dynamic between readers and the author of “Native Son.”
The Case That Being Poor and Black Is Bad for Your Health
The public-health professor Arline T. Geronimus has spent a forty-year career researching how inequality takes a “weathering” toll on the body.
The Trials and Triumphs of Writing While Woman
From Mary Wollstonecraft to Toni Morrison, getting a start meant starting over.
Lana Del Rey’s New Album Searches for Transcendence
On “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd,” the artist asks lofty questions with an earnestness that’s sometimes sublime and sometimes a bit dippy.
Chris Rock’s Live Experiment in Saving Face
“Everybody fucking knows. . . . I got smacked, like, a year ago,” the comedian finally says at the end of his Netflix special, as if that’s not the reason we’re all here.
The Internet’s Richest Fitness Resource Is a Site from 1999
Exrx.net is little changed since the days of Yahoo GeoCities and dial-up and saying “www” aloud. Yet beneath its bare-bones interface is a deep physiological compendium.
“Yellowstone” ’s Epic TV Expansionism
The showrunner Taylor Sheridan has been given wide latitude to iterate on the world of the Dutton ranching family, but he’s best when honoring his Western’s melodramatic core.
The Rock Goes Back to Black
“Black Adam” and the slippery identities of Dwayne Johnson.
In Taylor Swift’s “Midnights,” the Easter Eggs Aren’t the Point
Fans treat her every song as a decoder ring, but it’s Swift’s vocal technique that gives her new album its power.
Namwali Serpell’s New Novel Reinvents the Elegy
In “The Furrows,” a brother vanishes beneath the waves, and resurfaces in a hundred guises.
Josephine Baker Was the Star France Wanted—and the Spy It Needed
When the night-club sensation became a Resistance agent, the Nazis never realized what she was hiding in the spotlight.
“Tell Me to Be Bette Midler, I Would Find a Way”: An Interview with Sam Richardson
The comedian discusses home-town comedy, the boundaries of joke-telling, Batman, and the eternal race question.
Alice Walker’s Journals Depict an Artist Restless on Her Laurels
As the writer counts honors and advances—and keeps tabs on rivals, lovers, and detractors—the drive to succeed is the drive to survive.
How Louie Simmons Defined the Extreme Sport of Power Lifting
The controversial founder of the gym Westside Barbell, who died in March, was the innovator of a go-hard-or-go-home culture of strength training.
The Zora Neale Hurston We Don’t Talk About
In the new nonfiction collection “You Don’t Know Us Negroes,” what emerges is a writer who mastered a Black idiom but seldom championed race pride.
The 1619 Project and the Demands of Public History
The ambitious Times endeavor, now in book form, reveals the difficulties that greet a journalistic project when it aspires to shift a founding narrative of the past.
Dave Chappelle, Netflix, and the Illusions of Corporate Identity Politics
The controversy over the comedian’s latest special is most telling not for its lessons on cancel culture or comedy but as a window on the streaming platform’s approach to so-called content.
Sally Rooney Gets Outside of People’s Heads
In her third novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” the Irish author observes her unhappy young protagonists from a notable distance.
The Void That Critical Race Theory Was Created to Fill
The movement’s architects saw the inadequacy of liberal solutions to racial injustice. Yet the term has become a lullaby by which liberals self-soothe.
Paul Mooney, Comedy’s Maestro of White America
Like his collaborator Richard Pryor, Mooney used the N-word as a form of comic expression. But it was whiteness that he made devastatingly easy to understand.
What We Want from Richard Wright
A newly restored novel tests an old dynamic between readers and the author of “Native Son.”