P.S. The New New Critic
Unveiling our grand plan
THE NEW CRITIC
Despite the grousing from out-of-age commentators about “The Death of X” and “The End of Y,” there are young Americans advancing the yoke of tradition into the muddy battleground of the future, we who smoke from the hookah of experience and imbibe the intoxicants of struggle and youth.
Amidst the great whorl of consternation regarding our generation, The New Critic is a flesh-and-blood gen z magazine. We publish writers who are too young to remember the fall of the Twin Towers and old enough to have borne witness to the nativity of ChatGPT. We publish The New Critic for our friends and our peers, and we ask our writers to answer ever greater questions about their experiences, their traditions, and their selves.
Our essays are always online and always free, but we rely (and depend!) on individual donors to support the magazine. If you read The New Critic and take any delight or solace in our project, please consider a paid subscription. The $30 annual rate costs as much as a couple paperbacks or movie tickets. Our $250 founding members are our most ardent patrons, those who wish to advance our wildest editorial ambitions.
For paid subscribers, expect The New Critic on Wednesdays with a Postscript, an installment in our conversation series, attached. Postscripts are for paid subscribers only — free subscribers be tantalized. Below are the nine conversations we have published thus far.
No. 9 | “The Manifesto with No Name,” Ramsey Alsheikh on the eros of activism
No. 8 | “Holy Fool,” Theodore Gary on Joshua Block, middle school boys, and Fyodor Dostoevsky
No. 7 | “Strangle Your Idols,” Will Diana on lunar nightmares, faraway lands, and Covid psychosis
No. 6 | “What Troubled You in 2025?” An end-of-year symposium with New Critic contributors
No. 5 | “The Crazy Train,” Matthew Adelstein, Noah Birnbaum, and Amos Wollen on effective altruism
No. 4 | “Beyond Pain,” Bond Almand IV on cycling and the Pan-American world record
No. 3 | “Learning the Machine,” Rhea Madhogarhia on machine learning and AI interns
No. 2 | “The College Combinator,” Danylo Borodchuk on Y Combinator and dropping out of college
No. 1 | “Two-State Friendship,” Ramsey Alsheikh and Elan Kluger on Israel-Palestine
With spring, snowmelt bears new life and more editors. We are chuffed to welcome four new assistant editors to the New Critic masthead, friends and travelers from the far reaches of the earth who take shelter beneath the lips of David Bowie and the wings of the New Critic Rook.
RITUAL ANOINTMENT OF ASSISTANT EDITORS
One shot of elixir for Will Diana, bard of Shenandoah.
One quickly downed spirit for Theodore Gary, prairie rebuttalist.
One spritz of holy water for Isabel Mehta, epicure of character.
One spume of incense for Owen Yingling, expatriate of letters.
Long live these New Critics.
– Founding Editors Tessa Augsberger, Elan Kluger, and Rufus Knuppel
THE YOUNG AMERICANS