Nathan Heller

California, New York

Contributing Editor at Vogue

New Yorker staff writer, Vogue contributing editor, semi-pro eavesdropper, overcaffeinated earth child. Now writing THE PRIVATE ORDER for Penguin Press.

Articles

A CASE OF DIVERTICULITIS AT 34 WEEKS OF PREGNANCY

1 month ago | giejournal.org | Ahmed Shehadah |Nathan Heller

mild/moderate wall thickening involving the sigmoid colon with mild to moderate stranding inflammatory change.
Trump and the Favoritism Grift

2 months ago | newyorker.com | Nathan Heller

For many people, the most disturbing responses are from the universities. Higher education is a realm in which the United States still sets the global standard. The habits of democracy—free individual inquiry, clear evidence-based thinking, an aversion to bunk—are academic habits, and university research in everything from nanoelectronics to cancer is the foundation of industry and medicine. To many Trumpists, though, the diversity and the authority of the academy stands as a threat.
The New Yorker Classics Newsletter

Mar 23, 2025 | link.newyorker.com | Pauline Kael |Nathan Heller |Hanif Abdurraqib |Dhruv Khullar

The movie critic’s informal manifesto reflects both her brilliance and her blind spots during a revolutionary period in Hollywood. View in browser | New Takes on the classics. To celebrate its centenary, The New Yorker has invited contributors to revisit notable works from the archive. You’re on the free list. Subscribe to enjoy unlimited access to a century of reporting, commentary, criticism, and fiction.
Graydon Carter’s Wild Ride Through a Golden Age of Magazines

Mar 15, 2025 | newyorker.com | Nathan Heller

Style is said to be singular, which makes it difficult to define. It is personal, though its appreciation can be broad, and it is not the same as fashion—many people hold the terms to be opposed. Generally speaking, it rises from confidence in being one thing and not another, and in knowing when to join and when to pull back from the pack. The great promulgator of style, through much of the previous century, was the editor of magazines.
Can Higher Education Survive?

Mar 4, 2025 | newyorker.com | Nathan Heller

Trump’s trade war has officially begun. In today’s newsletter, a breakdown on what the tariffs might mean. But, first, reporting on a year of protest at university campuses—and what will happen now that the President has threatened to cut federal funding for higher education. Plus:• A podcast on the origins of the humdrumBig changes, in the United States, often show up on campuses first.
Will Harvard Bend or Break?

Mar 3, 2025 | businessandamerica.com | Nathan Heller

Universities have always gone far to court wealthy donors: both Lessin and Ackman were first introduced to Claudine Gay when she was a dean. Just how far became clear through a motion filed in 2024 in a long-running lawsuit against seventeen élite colleges and universities, Harvard not among them. Subsequently released testimony and records indicated that some schools had policies of waving through applicants whose parents were expected to give a lot of money.
Will Harvard Bend or Break?

Mar 3, 2025 | newyorker.com | Nathan Heller

There would be debate about who struck the match that lit the fuse that spiralled around campus, but the sequence of events was plain enough to everyone who saw it burn. On October 9, 2023, two days after Hamas-led fighters from Gaza invaded Israel, killing twelve hundred people and taking more than two hundred hostages, Claudine Gay, the new president of Harvard University, exchanged e-mails with a small group of colleagues to draft a suitable response. Should they call the attacks “violent”?
In Paris and Capri with Simon Porte Jacquemus

Jan 9, 2025 | vogue.ph | Théo de Gueltzl |Nathan Heller

At a friend’s birthday dinner in Paris not long ago—a long banquette in a small neighborhood restaurant—I arrived late, sat, and was questioned by my tablemates about what brought me to France, where I don’t live. With the dismissive vagueness that writers learn to cultivate for work in progress, I told them I was working on a piece about a fashion designer. “I hope it’s Jacquemus,” someone across the table cut in. “Yeah, Jacquemus,” another guest agreed.
ジャックムスの軌跡──デザイナー、サイモンの物語

Nov 28, 2024 | vogue.co.jp | Nathan Heller |Masayo Ugawa |Emi Kameoka |ThãO De Gueltzl

少し前にパリで友人の誕生日ディナーに出席した時のこと。小さな街角のレストランに遅れて到着した私は長いベンチシートに座り、テーブルの同席者たちから、遠路はるばるフランスまで来た理由を問われていた。作家が執筆中の作品について聞かれたときに使う常套手段として、曖昧で素っ気ない態度を示しながら、あるファッションデザイナーについて書いているから、と答えると、テーブルの向こう側に座っていた誰かが「ジャックムスだといいな」と口を挟んだ。「ああ、ジャックムスね」と別の誰かが同意する。ゲストのほとんどはファッション業界と関係がなく、映画関係者やビジネスパーソン、子どもを持つ人、弁護士とばらばらだ。しかし、彼らはそのブランドに対して、ある認識を持っていた。「あそこは何か新しいことをやっている感じがするんだ」...
Republican Victory and the Ambience of Information

Nov 12, 2024 | newyorker.com | Nathan Heller

Dawn had not yet broken on the election results last week when Democrats began their favored ritual of falling out of love. Reasons were enumerated why Kamala Harris, the candidate who weeks earlier had been a magnet for enthusiasm, was an obvious poor choice to run for President. She was too coastal, it was suggested, too centrist, too un-primaried, too woke, too female. What were they thinking? The remorse is familiar, regardless of the outcome.