Writing
Peer reviewed
“The Ambient Mode,” Post45, 2025
“The Acid-Washed Novel,” Post45, 2021
“Muck, Memory, Regeneration: Abject histories in Hurston and Du Bois,” in Swamp Souths: Literary and Cultural Ecologies, Louisiana State University Press 2020
Catalog essays
“The Last Spike” and “Leland Stanford Sr. and the Central Pacific Railroad” in A Gallery Guide to the Melancholy Museum, Cantor Center for Visual Arts 2019
Public scholarship, criticism, reviews (selected; highlighted are particular favorites of mine):
2026
“Cone of Obliscence Customer Service: On Taylor Swift’s ‘Cleveland!’”, Cleveland Review of Books
“Has a Dash of ‘Whimsy’ Become Less Whimsical?”, New York Times Magazine
Review of Asher White, Love Aggregates, Pitchfork
“The Red Hot Chili Peppers Beyond Good and Evil,”Defector
“A Simple, One-Word Trick to Turn Everyday Life Into Grand Fantasy,” New York Times Magazine
“Phoebe Bridgers Comes Back to Earth,” New Yorker
“Forget Albums—Pop Stars Measure Their Careers in Eras Now,”New Yorker
Review of Nick Hakim, I Can See, Pitchfork
“History Is a Hype Real,” The Drift newsletter
“The Art of the Fictional Pop Song,”New Yorker
“Into the Right-Wing Dreamworld,” The Drift
Selected as a Top 5 Longreads pick
Review of Bon Iver, VOLUMES: ONE, Pitchfork
“The BTS Machine Lurches Back to Life,” New Yorker
“X’s Chatbot Started Undressing Women. Was This What A.I. Wanted All Along?”, New York Times Magazine
“What Do We Want from a Protest Song?”, New Yorker
2025
Review of the Replacements, Let It Be (Deluxe Edition,) Pitchfork
“Taylor Swift Is Our Biggest Cinematic Universe. But the Magic Is Fading,” New York Times Magazine
“The Tragedy of ‘Stomp Clap Hey,’” Defector
“How Do You Measure a Life? In Caffeinated 5-Hour Bursts,” New York Times Magazine
“Lorde Strips Down to Start Over,” New Yorker
“The World that ABBA Made,” New Yorker
“Agit-Slop,” The Drift
“Can Spotify Be Stopped?,” The Nation
“Hype Train Coming,” n+1
“Nowhere Men: Pop Music and the Waning of Character,” Mid Theory Collective
2024
“In Big Star’s ‘Radio City,’ The Old Spells Don’t Work,”New Yorker
“A Business Doing Pleasure with You,” Cleveland Review of Books
“The Problem of Mid for the Criticism of the Present,” Mid Theory Collective
“Adventures in Style,” Chronicle of Higher Education
Review of Fucked Up, Another Day, Pitchfork
“Tropical Paradise,” TANK
“Secret Bogus World,” Cleveland Review of Books
“In Defense of That Whole Weird ‘90s Rock Marble-Mouthed Thing,” Defector
“Stream of Consciousness: Lana Del Rey and the immediacy paradigm,” TANK (with illustrations by Marco Maraggi)
Review of Itasca, Imitation of War, Pitchfork
“Page Against the Machine,”Bookforum
2023
Review of The Mountain Goats, Jenny from Thebes,Pitchfork
Review of Lydia Loveless, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again,Pitchfork
“Passionate Kisses: The Soundtrack at CVS,”Paris Review
“Dream of Antonoffication,”The Drift
“All Roll Is B-Roll,”The Drift
2022
“What Next,”Real Life
“Something Sharp,”Oxonian Review
“Feel for You,”Real Life
“The Novel of Vibes,” Post45: Contemporaries
(with Olivia Stowell) Introduction to the Dark Academia cluster, Post45: Contemporaries
“A Good Day at the Old Sweatshop,”Novel Dialogue
“Getting Personal,”Chicago Review
“Vibe, Mood, Energy: Or, bust-time reenchantment,”The Drift
2021
“Literary Miniaturist: On Mark Leyner,”n+1
2020
“Pod-Products for Pod-People,”The Baffler
2019
“Late Style in Rock and Roll,” Los Angeles Review of Books