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.

Editing Ted

The American Scholar

False Prophets • A recent film about a Black megachurch is often hilarious, but its flaws reside in the story it doesn't tell

Freud Airlines • Now boarding, all passengers, Flight 1900 to Vienna

Putting the Story Back in History • iHayden White on truth, facts, and the allure of a well-told tale

Dancing With Deneuve • A young writer observed a failure in the making while watching Francois Truffaut in action

A Room for the Ages • Oglethorpe University's time capsule was meant to last thousands of years, but will it?

Get Me Rewrite! • The relationship between a renowned author and a consummate editor can sometimes make for high drama

A Kingdom of Little Animals • Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms made possible the revolutionary advances in biology and medicine that continue to inform our Covid age

The Whole World in His Hands • What a digital restoration of the most expensive painting ever sold tells us about beauty, authenticity, and the fragility of existence

Night Vision • On finding comfort and purpose in the dark

In the Aftermath of Civil War • THE ART OF OBSERVANCE IN THE LYRICS OF

The Lives of Bryan • My brother often eluded death, but the many trials that he endured could not prepare us for that awful moment when he finally left us

Last Dance • At a World War II internment camp, George Igawa entertained thousands of incarcerated Japanese Americans—while teaching a band of novices how to swing

The Color of Dust • Sometimes even a team of radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons can be mystified by the strange workings of the human brain

Projections of Life • Memories of a Midwestern childhood and the stories only pictures can tell

One Look Back

Epithalamium

WILL THE REAL VERGIL PLEASE STAND UP? • Making sense of the life of a poet about whom we know so little

FRONTLINE ORACLE • A new biography of America's most beloved grunt reporter

WE AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET • After Covid-19, what might be next?

FAMILY TATTERS • A social experiment gone wrong

DON'T FORGET INTUITION • The art of doing science

SHELL SHOCK AND AWE • The enduring terror of the trenches

NOTES AND OUTTAKES • Good writing never gets old

SOMEONE'S GOTTA DO IT • On transforming monotony into meaning

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