It used to be there were plenty of magazines writing about big ideas but this was before big publishing.
Scan the news racks today and you’ll find magazines for almost every product imaginable, but no big ideas. But if you keep looking, maybe in that pile on the floor or maybe on the bottom shelf along the back wall, you just might find where they keep the little magazines. There’s nothing new about little magazines, they have a tradition and history.
But there is something different about the new breed. The Baffler, the Hermenaut, Open Letters, these are magazines unabashedly taking on subjects like philosophy and cultural criticism. These are magazines printing hypothetical histories and intimate personal letters. Little magazines with big ideas.
(Hosted by Jack Beatty)
Guests:
Tom Frank editor/publisher of The Baffler
Josh Glenn, editor/publisher of The Hermenaut;
Paul Tough, editor of www.openletters.net.