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Original poetry, fiction, and cultural criticism explore issues of trust, bridge-building, difference, and betrayal, both political and private.How do we know who is on our side? Is it possible for someone who is not like us to share our hopes? Can links forged by empathy or mutual interest match those created by shared experience? What can we gain from alliances that we cannot achieve on our own?These are difficult question to answer even in intimate settings, and more so in arenas of cultural and political struggle. Through original poetry, fiction, and cultural criticism from both established writers and newcomers, Allies offers unique insights into issues of trust, bridge-building, difference, and betrayal. Drawing on the prophetic power of the imagination to conjure both the possible dangers and life-giving possibilities of alliances—be they political, private (such as marriage), therapeutic, or even aesthetic (between readers and writers, for example)—Allies will be essential reading for our times.Allies is the first publication of Boston Review's newly inaugurated Arts in Society department. A radical revisioning of the magazine's poetry and fiction, the department unites them—along with cultural criticism and belles lettres—into a project that explores how the arts can speak directly to the most pressing political and civic concerns of our age, from growing inequality to racial and gender regimes, a disempowered electorate, and a collapsing natural world.FictionSamuel Delay, Tananarive Due, Catherine TaylorPoetry Jane Miller, Ru Puro, Emilia Nielsen, Sarah Vap, Rachel Levitsky, Tess Liem InterviewsWalter Johnson and Tef Poe, Robin D. G. Kelley and Vijay Iyer EssaysRoderick Ferguson, Micki McEyla, Mark Nowak, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Abdullah Taïa

Martin Luther King's legacy for today's activists, fifty years after his death.Since his death on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King's legacy has influenced generations of activism. Edited and with a lead essay by Brandon Terry, this volume explores what this legacy can and cannot do for activism in the present.King spent the months leading up to his death organizing demonstrations against the Vietnam War and planning the Poor People's Campaign, a "multiracial army of the poor” that would march on Washington in pursuit of economic justice. Thus the spring of 1968 represented a hopeful, albeit chaotic set of possibilities; King, along with countless other activists, offered both ethical and strategic solutions to the multifaceted problems of war, racism, and economic inequality. With a critical eye on both the past and present, this collection of essays explores that moment of promise, and how, in the fifty years since King's death, historical forces have shaped what we claim as a usable past in fighting the injustices of our time.ContributorsChristian G. Appy, Andrew Douglas, Bernard E. Harcourt, Elizabeth Hinton, Samuel Moyn, Ed Pavlic, Aziz Rana, Barbara Ransby, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Brandon M. Terry, Jeanne Theoharis, Thad Williamson

Feminist writers and scholars consider whether technology has made good on its promise to liberate women—sexually, biologically, economically, and politically.In Once and Future Feminist, editor and lead essayist Merve Emre turns a critical eye on the role of technology in feminism both past and present. With her starting point the "fertility benefits” offered by Silicon Valley tech companies, Emre posits that such reproductive technologies as egg freezing and in vitro fertilization aren't inherently emancipatory; they often make women even more vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace. Almost fifty years ago, radical feminist Shulamith Firestone viewed developments in reproductive technology with skepticism, arguing in The Dialectic of Sex that they are only "incidentally in the interests of women when at all.” Engaging other feminist writers and scholars, this collection broadens out to examine whether technology in general has made good on its promise to liberate women—sexually, biologically, economically, and politically. In this context, Once and Future Feminist considers not only whether or not a radical, emancipatory feminism is possible today but what such a feminism might look like.ContributorsIrina Aristarkhova, Michael Bronski, James Chappell, Mary Darnovsky, Silvia Federici, Chris Kaposy, Sophie Lewis, Andrea Long Chu, Annie Menzel, Cathy O'Neil, Sarah Sharma, Diane Tober, Miriam Zoll

Is anger eternal? Righteous? Reflections on the causes and consequences of an phenomenon critical to our intimate and public lives.From Aristotle to Martha Nussbaum, philosophers have explored the moral status of anger. We get angry for a reason: we feel wronged. That reason can be eternal, some argue, because not even an apology or promise that it won't happen again can change the fact of the original harm. Although there are pragmatic reasons for ceasing to be angry and moving on, is eternal anger moral? Is anger righteous? In this collection, contributors consider these and other questions about the causes and consequences of anger.Leading off the debate, philosopher Agnes Callard argues that anger is not righteous rage; it is not an effort to solve a problem. Instead, it reflects a cry for help—a recognition that something shared is broken. And only in acknowledging the value of that shared project, she argues, can we begin together to repair it. Anger, then, is a starting point. But could there ever be the end of anger?Bringing together today's leading thinkers on anger, this volume raises questions critical to our intimate and public lives. ContributorsRachel Achs, Paul Bloom, Elizabeth Bruenig, Judith Butler, Agnes Callard, Daryl Cameron, Myisha Cherry, Barbara Herman, Desmond Jagmohan, David Konstan, Oded Na'aman, Martha C. Nussbaum, Amy Olberding, Whitney Phillips, Jesse Prinz, Victoria Spring, Brandon M. Terry

How we can recover from terrible ruptures, the pandemic, toxic politics, racist horrors, class warfare, gendered violence, and ecological brinksmanship.Individually and collectively, we bear deep wounds. Some of these are generations old; all have been worsened by a destructive period of pyrrhic politics that left us ill-equipped to respond to a global health catastrophe. As we struggle to recover our footing and grieve our dead, Boston Review believes that the arts must have a voice in the conversation about how we heal. In this new anthology of poetry, fiction, and essays from renowned writers and newcomers, writers explore whether and how we can repair terrible ruptures, life-threatening illnesses and the pandemic, toxic politics, racist horrors, class warfare, gendered violence, and ecological brinksmanship. ContributorsAriella Aisha Azoulay, Kemi Alabi, Donia Elizabeth Allen, Don Mee Choi, Adebe DeRango-Adem, Emma Dries, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Randall Horton, Savonna Johnson, Kim Hyesoon, Maya Marshall, Colleen Murphy, Simone Person, aureleo sans, Bishakh Som, Olúfmi O. Táíwò, Meredith Talusan, Brian Teare, Yiru Zhang

How can the speculative imagination help us build a better world?At a world-historical moment of global upheaval, speculative writing is enjoying a renaissance. This collection of poetry, stories, and essays engages speculation as both a ubiquitous feature of financial capitalism and a radical tool of collective imagination. By rejecting dominant ideas about what is possible, speculation empowers us to plot new paths to a more just world.Creative works range over violence and healing, memory and erasure, and alternative worlds, while essays span the meaning of land and community in the African diaspora, Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction, and the ethics of the far future. Taken together, these works suggest that speculation is ultimately about our relationships with each other—as one contributor puts it, "what they have been, what they are, and most important, what they could be."

Some of today’s top legal thinkers consider the ways that legal thinking has bolstered—rather than corrected—injustice.Bringing together some of today’s top legal thinkers, this volume reimagines law in the twenty-first century, zeroing in on the most vibrant debates among legal scholars today. Going beyond constitutional jurisprudence as conventionally understood, contributors show the ways in which legal thinking has bolstered rather than corrected injustice. If conservative approaches have been well served by court-centered change, contributors to Rethinking Law consider how progressive ones might rely on movement-centered, legislative, and institutional change. In other words, they believe that the problems we face today are vastly bigger than can be addressed by litigation. The courts still matter, of course, but they should be less central to questions about social justice. Contributors describe how constitutional law supported a system of economic inequality; how we might rethink the First Amendment in the age of the internet; how deeply racial bias is embedded in our laws; and what kinds of changes are necessary. They ask which is more important: the laws or how they are enforced? Rethinking Law considers these questions with an eye toward a legal system that truly supports a just society. Contributors include Jedediah Purdy, David Grewal, Jamal Greene, Reva Siegel, Jocelyn Simonson, Aziz Rana