William Deresiewicz

Portland

Essayist and Literary Critic at Freelance

Minor American writer. Not data-driven or trauma-informed.

Articles

Bill Deresiewicz on Eros, Incels, the Not Left, and the Death of the Artist

1 week ago | kenilgunas.substack.com | William Deresiewicz

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -58:44Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Bill Deresiewicz is a writer and cultural critic. He’s written popular essays such as “Solitude and Leadership,” and books including Excellent Sheep, a critique of elite education; the The Death of the Artist, which explores the precarious lives of creative workers; and The End of Solitude—a collection of Bill’s greatest essays.
Post Election - Salmagundi Magazine

1 month ago | salmagundi.skidmore.edu | William Deresiewicz

Another debacle. Another round of rationalizations, minimizations, self-exculpations. Harris lost because she got a late start. Because of anti-incumbency sentiment. Because voters were misinformed about the border, the economy, the crime rate. Because “this is who we are” (i.e. sexist and racist). Because she represented change, and some people can’t handle the fact that the country is changing.
The Rise of the Not Left

2 months ago | danieloppenheimer.substack.com | Meghan Daum |Mark Oppenheimer |Mana Afsari |William Deresiewicz

My guest on this episode of the podcast is William Deresiewicz, author of a number of books, most notably Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, and the Substack newsletter Derisivist. Bill and I end up spending a fair amount of time discussing an as-yet-untitled essay of his that’s forthcoming in Salmagundi, and at what I'd say are the two poles of it.
Who Are the Real Elite?

Feb 12, 2025 | utaustinliberalarts.substack.com | William Deresiewicz

In a few weeks, UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts will host our annual spring symposium, where we gather authors, scholars, and scientists from around the country for a day of discussion and debate. This year the theme is Discourse: In Action, Theory, and Democracy, and the goal is to model how to have conversations that matter. One of our guests will be writer and critic William Deresiewicz in conversation with Kristen Soltis Anderson and Michael Lind about the “real elite.” Who are they?
Here Come the Allodidacts

Feb 9, 2025 | the-hinternet.com | William Deresiewicz

A core component of our activity here at The Hinternet is the exploration of ideas for the preservation and stewardship of the irreducibly human powers of creativity, imagination, and intellectual discovery, in the face of a rising machine-dominated social order.
How Art Lost Its Way

Jan 6, 2025 | persuasion.community | William Deresiewicz

Now I’ll never have a chance to impress Arlene Croce. Croce, who died last month at 90, was the dean of American dance critics during the heyday of American dance. I started my writing career as a dance critic, too, and for many years that’s all I ever dreamed of being as a writer. My first sixty-plus published articles were dance reviews, and their intended audience consisted, in its entirety, of Arlene Croce. She was the lodestar, the queen, the presence around which the field arranged itself.
What if DEI Training Makes People More Biased?

Dec 2, 2024 | chronicle.com | William Deresiewicz |Adam Briggle |Lee Papa |Len Gutkin

If you’ve taught at a college or university in the last decade, you’ve almost certainly sat through some required diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. Perhaps you were on a search committee and had to meet regularly with a diversity consultant who promised to help root out your implicit biases.
Academe’s Divorce From Reality

Nov 21, 2024 | chronicle.com | William Deresiewicz

The politics of the academy have been defeated. Its ideas, its assumptions, its opinions and positions — as expressed in official statements, embodied in policies and practices, established in centers and offices, and espoused and taught by large and leading portions of the professoriate — have been rejected. This was already evident before November 5. It can now no longer be denied. Some data points.
Respect, or The Missing Relation - Liberties

Oct 1, 2024 | libertiesjournal.com | William Deresiewicz |Jake Harrison

I contemplate a bird. In fact it is a photo of a bird, many times larger than life, hanging on the wall of a café. I’ve never had a chance to scrutinize a bird so carefully before. After I finish admiring its beauty, I turn my attention to its claws, which are pointed and hard, its beak, which is open in a cry, its eyes, which are empty of pity or warmth. I think: this creature is intensely alien to me. It is not a cute little bird, a sweet little bird, look at the pretty little bird.
Deep Reading Will Save Your Soul

Aug 20, 2024 | persuasion.community | William Deresiewicz

As Persuasion celebrates its fourth anniversary, our team is proud of what we’ve achieved—and in need of a little breather. So, for the second half of August, we are republishing some of our favorite essays from the past 12 months.