The American Scholar

Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous speech, The American Scholar is the quarterly magazine of public affairs, literature, science, history, and culture published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society since 1932.

A Lament for the Ages

The American Scholar

A Midsummer Night's Stream • Can digital performances save America's nonprot theaters?

Learning to Be Social • What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others?

The Murderer as Everyman • Arthur Fleck's rise and fall

After the Fallout • On jelly fish babies, my father's pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific

Mr. Olympia • When the ancient Greeks looked at human muscle, they saw something different than we do

Tiger Mom • At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son's restless mind

American Carthage • Echoes from the ancient conflicts between Hannibal's city and Rome continue to reverberate well into the present

Asteroid Hunters • The scientists and engineers who defend our planet day and night from potentially hazardous space rocks

Between Memory and Hope • THE LOVE POETRY OF ANTHONY WALTON

Lessons From Harlem • A white blues player's streetside education

In the Matter of the Commas • For the true literary stylist, this seemingly humble punctuation mark is a matter of precision, logic, individuality, and music

Raspberry Heaven • A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine

Maximalisma • A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her

Revenants

The Heart Yearns Without Tears

The Birthmark

WHO WOULD I BE OFF MY MEDS • Can weaning oneself off pharmaceuticals ease the cycle of perpetual suffering?

WHO'S TO SAY? • A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity

CHAPTERS AND VERSE • Looking for the poet between the lines

ONCE MORE, WITHOUT FEELING • Can a memoir be effective when it lacks any warmth?

ELECTRONS THAT BIND • The molecule at the center of everything

FOOD FOR THOUGHT • A pragmatic approach to one of humanity's gravest threats

SPLITTING OUR SIDES • A new biography of a comedy pioneer

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