Critics at Large | The New Yorker

“The Journey,” a five-part audio investigation by Ava Kofman, unravels the mystery of how Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, a wealthy Los Angeles couple, obtained dozens of children through nearly as many surrogates—and exposes a scandal that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry.

In Episode 1, “Gifts,” a woman in Texas agrees to carry a child for the couple. She thinks she’s helping a family in need. Then she becomes a whistle-blower.

In the Dark is an acclaimed investigative-journalism podcast that launched in 2016. Its third season won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for audio.

To keep listening to “The Journey,” search for In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the school year resumes, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the work—and pleasure—of teaching and learning, reflect on their own experiences in the classroom, and counsel listeners on scholastic concerns. One teacher calls in asking for texts she could assign to combat apathy among her high-school students; another is looking for works that depict the highs and lows of her chosen career; and a graduate student seeks works of poetry to convince skeptics of the form’s artistic value. The hosts discuss the ways in which teaching is itself a kind of art form. “Teaching is so much a kind of performance,” Cunningham says. “You have to be the one out on the ledge . . . to establish a new frontier of, ‘You are allowed to be excited about this.’ ”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Less Than Zero,” by Bret Easton Ellis

Homer’s Odyssey

“Black Boy,” by Richard Wright

“The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A Complicated Kindness,” by Miriam Toews

“Black Swan” (2010)

“The Holdovers” (2023)

“Democracy and Education,” by John Dewey

“The Class” (2008)

“The Simpsons” (1989-)

“Are You My Mother?,” by Merve Emre (The New Yorker)

“Dead Poets Society” (1989)

“Theme for English B,” by Langston Hughes

“Llull,” by Ariana Reines

“Odes,” by Sharon Olds

“The Red Poppy,” by Louise Glück

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Upon news of Dolly Parton’s death last week, flags across the country were lowered to half-mast. A petition circulated to rename the Nashville airport in her honor, and social media read like a greatest-hits reel of the charisma and musical acumen that made her universally beloved. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry are joined by three fellow New Yorker writers to celebrate Parton’s life and work, and the legacy she leaves behind. Kathryn Schultz, who penned Parton’s Postscript, discusses her undersung, “Oprah-like” business savvy and deep commitment to philanthropic causes; Amanda Petrusich distills Parton’s vast discography down to three essential tracks; and Lauren Michele Jackson considers how the star’s carefully crafted persona played up aspects of her femininity while transcending divisions of race and class. “The ready word one reaches for is ‘saint,’ right?” Schultz says. “This is someone who came from nothing and might reasonably have felt the instinct to hoard everything she had. And she had the absolute opposite instinct, which was to give as much away as she could.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“9 to 5” (1980)

Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”

“Dolly Parton for the People,” by Kathryn Schultz (The New Yorker)

“Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” by Dolly Parton

“Country Music” (2019)

Dolly Parton’s “Better Get to Livin’ ”

“What Dolly Parton Built,” by Amanda Petrusich (The New Yorker)

Beyoncé’s “JOLENE”

Dolly Parton’s “The Bridge”

Dolly Parton’s “Little Bird”

“The United States of Dolly Parton,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

Barbara Walters’s 1978 interview with Dolly Parton

“Taking In the Scene at Daisy Chain Fields, the Zoomer Lilith Fair,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

“Back: Essays on the Soul and Spine of America,” by Lauren Michele Jackson

Dolly Parton’s “Backwoods Barbie”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In May, two low-budget movies from début filmmakers opened in theatres and quickly made box-office history. “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” which together have grossed nearly a billion dollars, defied conventional industry wisdom and inaugurated the burgeoning genre of “Gen Z horror.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by New Yorker culture editor and horror enthusiast Alex Barasch to discuss this new canon, beginning with the most recent entry, Alex Ullom’s “It Ends.” Like Curry Barker and Kane Parsons—the directors of “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” respectively—Ullom is a twentysomething who honed his craft on YouTube. This content pipeline has already become a model for Hollywood executives who are scrambling to cash in on the phenomenon. But these films’ sensitivity to the predicaments of young viewers, who grew up online and came of age during the pandemic, may be the real key to their commercial success. “It’s people responding to another member of their generation speaking directly to them,” Barasch says. “I hope that that is what is sought and funded and rewarded in this new era.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Why Horror Still Haunts Us” (The New Yorker)

“Obsession” (2026)

“Backrooms” (2026)

“It Ends” (2026)

“The Twenty-Six-Year-Old Behind ‘Obsession,’ a Terrifying Tale of a Crush Gone Awry,” by Alex Barasch (The New Yorker)

“No Exit,” by Jean-Paul Sartre

“Weapons” (2025)

“Portal” (2007)

“Iron Lung” (2026)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During her tenure as The New Yorker’s television critic, Emily Nussbaum famously railed against ranking the year’s best shows; she once wrote a piece entitled “I Hate Top Ten Lists.” But naming her favorite series of all time is an easier proposition, and the honor goes to a little-known Canadian production from the early two-thousands that dramatized the colorful characters and commercial struggles of a fictional Shakespearean theatre festival. In the final episode of this summer’s Critics at Large interview series, Alex Schwartz talks with Nussbaum about her love of “Slings & Arrows,” which pioneered a complex balance of comedy and drama that would eventually become a hallmark of prestige television. Today, Hollywood showrunners including David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” sing its praises—and yet it remains largely overlooked by audiences. Nussbaum, who’s lately been writing as the magazine’s theatre critic, is on a mission to change that. “The history of TV is the confusion between whether something is good and whether it’s popular and commercial,” Nussbaum says. “ ‘Slings & Arrows’ is an example of a show that is the best show—regardless of how many people watch it.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Cue the Sun,” by Emily Nussbaum“Slings and Arrows” (2003-2006)“Hamlet,” by William Shakespeare“Macbeth,” by William Shakespeare“King Lear,” by William Shakespeare“30 Rock” (2006-13)“Orange Is the New Black” (2013-19)“Call My Agent!” (2015-19)“The Studio” (2025—)“Next to Normal” (2025)“Succession” (2018-2023)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices