The Point, Issue 8

The Point is a twice-yearly journal of essays on contemporary life and culture. A mix of criticism, memoir, and reviews, The Point goes beyond intellectual tourism by challenging its readers to recognize the impact of ideas on their everyday life. Early issues have considered whether it is possible to live an honorable social life on Facebook, what Thorstein Veblen would say about Goldman Sachs, and why today’s conservatives ought to read Marx. Each issue also contains a symposium consisting of several shorter pieces relating to a topic chosen by the editors.

Issue 8 of The Point will feature essays on Rousseau and the ethics of eating, the enchanted architecture of graphic novels, and how television can get you through graduate school. Also a first-person account of EU bureaucracy in action in Estonia, and reviews of Norman Rush, Charlie Trotter, and the new scholarship on slavery.

The symposium for issue 8 asks: What is Science for? Responses explore the politics of climate change, the relationship between science and religion, and the fate of wonder under conditions of contemporary skepticism. Also: why does someone become a scientist today? Robert Bolger, Lorraine Daston, Alice Gregory, and Michael Gordin will be among the contributors.

Jon Baskin, Jonny Thakkar, and Etay Zwick all live in Chicago.