Portside

Ostriker's poem touches the heart of violence against women in a patriarchal culture.

The inevitability of the presidential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton often focuses on her gender and her twenty years as a Washington insider. Two books under review, Hard Choices, by Clinton herself, and HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes, give insight into both the 2016 elections and what a Clinton presidency would mean.

Eleanor Marx Aveling, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, was renowned in her time as a revolutionary activist and champion of modern culture and literature. Julia M. Klein takes a look at a new biography of this once famous, but now little-known, figure.

The great trial of Job is reborn in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s magnificent Russian film, Leviathan. Compellingly told and stunningly shot, the film is also not subtle. The bad guys—the trinity of the government, the court, and the church—are pure evil. They are Leviathan itself, the Biblical monster that cannot be caught or tamed or killed. The film contended at Cannes, won a Golden Globe, was nominated for an Oscar, but last month was snubbed at the Russian film awards.

Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.

Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.