The Trouble with Boomers

By: Joshua Glenn

The oldest Boomers turn 65 this year, and the youngest turn 56. By now, they’ve partially relinquished their collective death grip on the best jobs — though not the best lifestyles, which they’ll always enjoy. […]

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The Argonaut Folly (part 1 of 3)

By: Joshua Glenn

An abridged version of this essay appeared in the journal n+1 (Winter 2007). PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE I set out to commemorate the heroes of old who sailed the good ship […]

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Double Exposure (3)

By: Joshua Glenn

Is it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done… SO DEMANDS THE protagonist of Matthew Arnold’s 1852 […]

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Quatschwatch (1)

By: Joshua Glenn

OUR READERS already know that HILOBROW has a problem with — in fact, an animus against — quatsch. As of today, we’re going to start fighting back against its reign of terror. Building on my […]

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Christopher Lasch

By: Joshua Glenn

An intellectual historian and historian of intellectuals, CHRISTOPHER LASCH (1932-94) picked up the torch offered by negative-dialectical curmudgeons (T.W. Adorno, Dwight Macdonald) who’d rejected the shibboleths of liberals and conservatives alike. Pinpointing the social, political, […]

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T.H. White

By: Joshua Glenn

“To and fro/Stop and go/That’s what makes the world go round…” Ugh. I pity the fool who sees Disney’s 1963 adaptation of The Sword in the Stone (from which these insipid lyrics are quoted) before […]

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My Wes Anderson Problem — And Ours

By: Joshua Glenn

WES ANDERSON’S Bottle Rocket (1996) raised the hopes of hilobrows everywhere, and his Rushmore (1998) fulfilled those hopes in spades. So what happened? Anderson once knew how to get a great performance out of his […]

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Immortal New Gods

By: Joshua Glenn

A year ago this month, I identified a generational cohort of Americans and Western Europeans: the New Gods. Born between 1914 and 1923, the New Gods are — to translate my periodization into the middlebrow-speak […]

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Hilobrow Cover Art (10)

By: Joshua Glenn

This is the final installment in our HiLobrow Cover Art series. Thanks to Luc Sante, Jonathan Lethem, and everyone else who sent in examples. It’s been fun! Check out the entire series. *** *** *** […]

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Hilobrow Cover Art (9)

By: Joshua Glenn

Special edition in the HiLobrow Cover Art series! Not esteemed fiction, this time, but classical music with racy cover imagery. Check out the entire series. *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** […]

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Hilobrow Cover Art (8)

By: Joshua Glenn

Will wonders never cease? These covers keep flooding in. Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to this important cultural archaeology project. Check out the entire series.

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