Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics

Liberties features the world’s sharpest minds for readers who are determined to stay curious. The result is a collection of writing about today worth rereading tomorrow.

In the Spring 2026 issue, Michael Grunwald reveals the only way to help the climate now; Assaf Sharon explores the religious turn in the new authoritarianism; Oksana Forostyna on Ukraine’s mysterious language of belonging; A. E. Stallings on poetic inspiration; Raha Shams from the streets of Tehran; Robert Rubsam conjures the spooky genius of the Brothers Quay; Sergei Lebedev analyzes the disfigurements of wartime Russia; Ian Buruma on art and evil; David A. Bell laments the decline of the book review; Adam Plunkett meets Frost and Milton in the woods; John Summers on autism and the healthcare system from hell; Gerald Howard excavates Tom Wolfe’s homework; Mitchell Abidor resurrects the original Dreyfusard; Margo Gontar on tea and drones in Kyiv; Robert Stewart on the etiquette of the farm; Sarah Rodriguez considers obscurity and the novel; Celeste Marcus takes a fresh look at Egon Schiele; Leon Wieseltier on love, reason, and the crisis of the Jews; and new poetry from Mary Jo Salter and Peg Boyers.

Liberties is the premier journal of culture and politics that also publishes new works online weekly and hosts lively events dedicated to thinking carefully about art and ideas. United only by a commitment to advancing the humanities and the democratic process, Liberties provides serious ideas and beautiful writing for readers who demand both.

MICHAEL GRUNWALD is a journalist and the author most recently of We Are Eating The Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate.

ASSAF SHARON is a professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University and a Senior Fellow at Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy.

OKSANA FOROSTYNA is a Ukrainian editor, author, and translator.

A. E. STALLINGS is an American poet, translator, and essayist. Her most recent book is Frieze Frame: How Poets, Painters, and Their Friends Framed the Debate Around Elgin and the Marbles of the Pantheon.

RAHA SHAMS is a pseudonym. This essay was translated by FATEMEH JAMALPOUR, a journalist, translator, and poet who has been living in exile from Iran for two years. 

ROBERT RUBSAM is a writer, editor, and photographer. He is the co-founder and co-host of the Interval Reading Series.

SERGEI LEBEDEV is a Russian novelist and the author most recently of The Lady of the Mine. This essay was translated by ANTONINA BOUIS.

IAN BURUMA's new book Stay Alive: Berlin 1939-1945 has just been published.

MARY JO SALTER is an American poet, a co-editor of the Norton Anthology of Poetry and a Professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. 

DAVID A. BELL is the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University.

ADAM PLUNKETT is the author of Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry.

JOHN SUMMERS is a writer, historian, and the editor of Lingua Franca magazine.

PEG BOYERS is a poet and the executive editor of Salmagundi. 

GERALD HOWARD was for many years the executive editor and vice president of Doubleday Books and is the author of The Insider: Malcolm Cowley and The Triumph of American Literature.

MITCHELL ABIDOR is a translator and the author most recently of Victor Serge: Unruly Revolutionary.

MARGO GONTAR is a writer and activist in Kyiv. 

ROBERT STEWART's book of essays, A Way of Happening, will appear later this year.

SARAH RODRIGUEZ is a fiction writer and essayist based in New York City. 

CELESTE MARCUS is the executive editor of Liberties.

LEON WIESELTIER is the editor of Liberties.