Liberties Journal of Culture & Politics

Liberties features the world's sharpest minds for readers who are determined to stay curious. The result is a collection of writing about today worth rereading tomorrow.

The Summer 2026 issue will be a special edition, with a nod to America's Semiquincentennial. Liberties writers will examine 250 years of culture and politics in the United States and the issue will feature a diverse selection of American poetry.

In this issue of Liberties, Sean Wilentz exposes the Trumpian distortions of the American past; Andrew Delbanco on the tribulations of the American university; Lewis Hyde explains what American history teaches about ICE; Armando Chaguaceda presents the creed of a Cuban dissident; Meg Vlaun on retreating to the mountains; Roxana Saberi interviews riot police on the streets of Iran; Ihab Hassan a Palestinian’s indictment of Hamas; Carissa Véeacute;liz a non-Luddite tribute to an analog existence; Michael C. Kimmage Melville’s oceanic parable of democratic citizenship; Arash Azizi the patriotism of a progressive; Mark Lilla on the unbeautiful nature of politics; Robert Alter on how the Bible does a lot with a little; Len Gutkin on the persistence of the political in the reading of literature; Kai Sina the strenuous liberalism and Zionism of Thomas Mann; Nadia Jamil Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry of empathy; Tamar Glezerman on mourning far away from home; Ani Chkhikvadze discovers the occult in the nation’s capital; Celeste Marcus on rape in polite society; and Leon Wieseltier the meanings of patriotism in our semiquincentennial.

The issue also include a selection of American poetry spanning Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Carrie Williams Clifford, Frances Harper, John Greenleaf Whittier, Herman Melville, Phoebe Cary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ambrose Bierce, Emma Lazarus, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane.

Liberties is the premier journal of culture and politics that also publishes new works online weekly and hosts lively events dedicated to thinking carefully about art and ideas. United only by a commitment to advancing the humanities and the democratic process, Liberties provides serious ideas and beautiful writing for readers who demand both.