Are Economists Going the Way of the Dinosaur?

For 70 years, a PhD in economics was the ticket to a comfortable and often prestigious career. Universities kept up a steady hiring pace to meet the robust student demand. For decades, economics worked like a sextant for navigating the murky waters of world commerce, whose mysteries could be charted if only one had the right models. If there was a figure who personified the American Century, it was not the statesman or the industrial worker but the economist. But now that has changed. Read Jamie Merchant’s “Are Economists Going the Way of the Dinosaur?”

Claire Denis’s Haunting Neocolonial Drama

Somewhere in West Africa, armed men keep careful watch over a construction site and remote compound where white expats live. The guards, all of them Black, are stationed at posts that tower over the area, a position from which they become omniscient observers. They communicate through melodic calls. If you’re not paying attention, it can be easy to miss how these uniformed agents function as a kind of chorus in Claire Denis’s haunting new neocolonial drama, The Fence. Read Lovia Gyarkye on “Claire Denis’s Haunting Neocolonial Drama”