Articles Written by:    CHRISTOPHER BENFEY     

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The Lives of the Irish

“The ways we miss our lives are life,” Randall Jarrell observed in his poem “A Girl in a Library.” Anne Enright, the Irish writer who won the 2007 Man Booker Prize for her dark novel “The Gathering,” counts some of the ways people miss their lives in ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, The New York Times,  5 Sep 2008

Designing Dictators

How did a practice as vile as branding become so valued, indeed, the very mark of value? Officials in the past have branded slaves and criminals remember Milady’s fleur-de-lis in “The Three Musketeers”? Samuel Maverick didn’t brand his cattle, but ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, The New York Times,  1 Aug 2008

'Iron Fists': The insidious side of brand loyalty

How did a practice as vile as branding become so valued, indeed, the very mark of value? Officials in the past have branded slaves and criminals - remember Milady's fleur-de-lis in "The Three Musketeers"? Samuel Maverick didn't brand his cattle, but ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, International Herald Tribune,  1 Aug 2008

"Inaction painters" at the Clark Art Institute.

Christopher Benfey is Mellon professor of English at Mount Holyoke. His latest book, A Summer of Hummingbirds, about writers and artists in Gilded Age America, has just been published by the Penguin Press. Join the Fray: our reader discussion ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, Slate,  9 Jul 2008

Miles Harvey's Painter in a Savage Land.

Nonfiction has to be true, of course, but it doesn't have to be believable, which may help explain why so many recent best-sellers are of the Ripley's variety. Coincidences that no novelist could get away with happen all the time in "real life." And ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, Slate,  23 Jun 2008

Bernd and Hilla Becher at MoMA.

Christopher Benfey is Mellon professor of English at Mount Holyoke. His latest book, A Summer of Hummingbirds, about writers and artists in Gilded Age America, has just been published by the Penguin Press. Join the Fray: our reader discussion ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, Slate,  4 Jun 2008

Antonio López García in Boston.

Christopher Benfey is Mellon professor of English at Mount Holyoke. His latest book, A Summer of Hummingbirds, about writers and artists in Gilded Age America, has just been published by the Penguin Press. Join the Fray: our reader discussion ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, Slate,  30 Apr 2008

Literary Devices

Fresh out of graduate school, I interviewed long ago for a teaching job at a posh girls’ school. The dean explained that while the institution had its traditions, it was very up-to-date. “We have compulsory chapel,” she informed me with a confidential ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, The New York Times,  18 Apr 2008

Meissen porcelain at the Frick.

Click here to read a slide-show essay about the arcane history of porcelain. Christopher Benfey is Mellon professor of English at Mount Holyoke and has written many art reviews for Slate. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, Slate,  2 Apr 2008

Poussin's paintings at the Met.

Christopher Benfey is Mellon professor of English at Mount Holyoke and has written many art reviews for Slate. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? ...

From CHRISTOPHER BENFEY, Slate,  20 Feb 2008

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