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Hollywood and the media portray veterans as either villains or victims, says the IAVA founder.

We need to fight the stereotype that veterans are all ticking time bombs.

The 2.2 million men and women who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 are a heterogeneous bunch, from different backgrounds both economically and politically.

A conversation with the Iraq war veteran and IAVA founder.

Writing courses and MFA programs make it easy to talk about a story if it proceeds in a way that is demonstrably similar to stories past. This means the really […]

“The unhappier parts of my career enabled me to say the more trenchant things,” says the novelist. But “if I’m not happy enough to finish the book … it doesn’t […]

Fiction writers are more desperate than ever, says the novelist. Scared that they’re not going to get published, they’re trying to shoehorn themselves into rigid—”sellable”—formats.

The novelist relies on improvisation as his fiction develops. “The fictional characters have their own volition … and are capable of proposing new ideas about how they want to live […]

A conversation with the novelist.

Digital culture is about getting to the meat of a subject as quickly as possible and then moving onto the next thing. Literature, on the other hand, is about doing […]

New models for media and better media literacy are important but not enough; we need to reexamine our public institutions, from local to federal levels.

Atheists honed their online chops earlier than most religious bloggers, but church-goers have the advantage of large non-virtual communities that can be leveraged on the Internet.

Before the oil spill, the public favored energy exploration and economic development over environmental protection. Six weeks later, that public preference had flipped.

People tend to self-select themselves into ideological echo chambers, says Nisbet.

One survey found that 90% of all the information on blogs and independent media sites was repackaged from traditional news sources.

The answer lies somewhere in between, says Nisbet.

Nisbet talks about his new blog, which will discuss the intersections of communication, culture, and public affairs.

A conversation with the professor and blogger.

Knife thrower David Adamovich walks us through some of his most popular stunts.

Though Throwdini’s first target was a man, all the rest since have been women. Part of the act’s appeal is wondering what happens off-stage, he says.

The most dangerous stunt “The Great Throwdini” has ever attempted involved catching bullets, knives, and arrows—and it did not go according to plan.

The Great Throwdini shows us his favorite projectiles and explains the mechanics of making them always hit the right spot.

David Adamovich didn’t start throwing knives until he was 50 years old. He admits that in his career as a thrower he’s “scraped” a girl. But “I’ve never impaled the […]

A conversation with the world’s fastest knife-thrower.

Abrams weighs in on the Supreme Court’s free speech decisions on the non-profit corporation Citizens United’s right to broadcast a film critical of Hilary Clinton ahead of the 2008 election […]

Abrams’ initial interest was in English law, which is less protective of free speech. As he learned more about the role that journalists can play at their best—and about the […]

Our understanding of the First Amendment is in flux. According to Abrams, these five cases have deeply shaped how freedoms of speech, press, and religion have come to be defined.

Abrams, who worked on the Pentagon Papers case, talks about how Julian Assange’s exposés about U.S. policy are different from Daniel Ellsberg’s revelations about Vietnam.

The U.S. has an “astonishing” and “breathtaking” degree of freedom for people, organizations, and institutions to have their say. Abrams talks about where this freedom meets its limits.

The legendary First Amendment lawyer gives a primer on what everyone needs to know about freedoms of religion, speech and press.