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Selected publications available online:

“The Remaking of Thomas Mann,” in Commonweal Magazine (22 February 2026)

“Ethics of Uncertainty,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 6395 (26 December 2025)

“A Cosmic Offense,” in Commonweal Magazine (December 2025)

“Borrow, but don’t return,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 6388 (19 September 2025)

“The Seeker and the Sought,” in The American Scholar (21 August 2025)

“Romania’s Split Identity,” in The New York Review of Books (21 August 2025), pp. 44-46. (Also available in Romanian, Italian)

“Shadow of the Iron Guard,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 6381 (18 July 2025)

“Descartes be Damned,” in Literary Review, No. 540 (May 2025)

“To Know or Not to Know,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 6369 (25 April 2025)

“Doing Nothing is Everything,” in The American Scholar (10 April 2025)

“Paving the Way for Trump,” Times Literary Supplement, No. 6359 (15 February 2025)

“A Life like a Poem,” Times Literary Supplement, No. 6358 (7 February 2025)

“Get out of Your Self,” Times Literary Supplement, No. 6349 (6 December 2024)

“Remarkable Affinities,” Times Literary Supplement, No. 6346 (15 November 2024)

“Blood on the Tracks,” Times Literary Supplement, No. 6344 (1 November 2024)

“Before & After,” in Commonweal Magazine (September 2024)

“Life amid Ruins” (with Raafat Majzoub), in 3 Quarks Daily (July 30, 2024) (Also available in Turkish, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Romanian)

“From Cult to Church,” in Literary Review (March 2024)

“Against the Current,” Times Literary Supplement, No 6305 (February 2, 2024)

“The Secret Pleasure of Breaking New Year’s Resolutions,” in TIME Magazine (28 December 28 2023) (Also available in Romanian, Farsi)

“Sound and Smell of a Philosophy,” in Times Literary Supplement, No 6291 (October 27, 2023)

“In Praise of Failure and Storytelling” (with Julien Crockett), in Los Angeles Review of Books (11 October 2023) (Also available in Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Polish, Vietnamese, Turkish)

“College for Clowns,” in Times Literary Supplement, No 6286 (September 22, 2023)

“Learning to be a loser. A philosopher’s case for doing nothing,” in Psyche (19 June 2023) (Also available in Dutch, Arabic)

“Romania’s Kafka,” in Times Literary Supplement (17 February 2023)

“A Socrates gone insane,” in Times Literary Supplement (27 January 2023)

“How to Swim against the Stream. On Diogenes,” in Los Angeles Review of Books (14 January 2023) (Also available in Chinese)

“Christ at the Assembly Line,” in Commonweal Magazine (January 2023)

“How sacrifice lost its significance,” in UnHerd (3 January 2023)

“What Lies at the Heart of the American Dream,” in New York Times (2 January 2023) (Also available in Chinese, Hebrew)

“Power has poisoned academia,” in UnHerd (21 December 2022)

“The Herd in the Head,” in Aeon (13 December 2022) (Also available in Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew)

“Censor’s sensibility,” in Times Literary Supplement (18 November 2022) (Also available in Chinese)

“Onward Christian Emperors,” in Literary Review (2 November 2022)

“Two Sides of Dignity,” in Commonweal Magazine (22 October 2022) (Also available in Chinese, Spanish)

“What’s behind a successful academic hoax?,” in The New Statesman (25 August 2022) (Also available in Chinese)

“The Only Way to Stand It,” in Commonweal Magazine (27 April 2022) (Also available in Chinese)

“The dark heart of Russia,” in UnHerd (14 March 2022) (Also available in Chinese, Albanian)

“How Thomas Mann escaped to America and waged a moral battle against Hitler,” in Washington Post (18 February 2022) (Also available in Portuguese)

“Faust in Romania. The drama of a country that can’t find its soul,” in Times Literary Supplement (4 February 2022)

“Privilege is the New Original Sin,” in UnHerd (17 November 2021)

“Bishop, Empiricist, and Weirdo,” in Times Literary Supplement (24 September 2021) (Also available in Chinese)

“Utopian Nightmares,” in Times Literary Supplement (9 July 2021)

“A Happy Contrarian,” in Commonweal Magazine (25 February 2021) (Also available in Chinese)

“The Plot and the Argument. Philosophy as a Narrative Affair,” in Los Angeles Review of Books (15 November 2020) (Also available in Chinese, Farsi, Portuguese)

“The fox and the hedgehog. Polymathy’s past and future,” in Times Literary Supplement (2 October 2020) (Also available in French, Chinese, Farsi)

“Sailing without Ballast,” in Commonweal Magazine (28 September 2020) (Also available in Chinese)

“A Soft Spot for Atheism,” in Commonweal Magazine (29 May 2020) (Also available in Chinese, Spanish)

“Always Narrating. The Making and Unmaking of Umberto Eco,” in Los Angeles Review of Books (9 March 2020) (Also available in Chinese, Italian, Farsi, Farsi, Russian)

“Show of faith in the unbelievers” in The Australian (24 January 2020)

“Tales of an existential croucher,” in Times Literary Supplement (22 November 2019) (Also available in Chinese)

“Inescapable Influence,” in Commonweal Magazine (24 September 2019)

“It Began in a Manger” [Review of Dominion, by Tom Holland], in Literary Review (September 2019)

“Democracy is for the Gods,” in New York Times, 5 July 2019 (Also available in Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, Romanian, Czech, Hebrew, Burmese, Danish, Greek, Turkish, Farsi, Portuguese, Romanian, Thai, Croatian)

"The Gifts of Humility," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 16 December 2018 (Also available in Chinese, Farsi, Romanian, Turkish, Macedonian)

“How different really are atheists and believers?” [Review of “Seven Types of Atheism,” by John Gray], in Washington Post, 16 November 2018.  

“Laughing More Loudly,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 6017 (27 July 2018)

"Are We Doomed to Fail?" in Philosophy for Our Times, 12 January 2018

"Philosophy Needs a New Definition," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 17 December, 2017 (Also available in Chinese, Turkish, Farsi, Italian)

"Why We Fail and How," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 24 September 2017 (Also available in Chinese, Vietnamese, Romanian, Spanish, Italian)

“Philosophy Has a Lot to Learn from Film,” in Aeon, 3 July 2017 (Also available in Vietnamese, Chinese, Farsi, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Russian)

“Our Delight in Destruction,” in New York Times, 27 March 2017 (Also available in Vietnamese, Farsi)

“The Philosopher of Failure,” in Los Angeles Review of Books, 28 November 2016 (Also in Spanish, Chinese, Turkish, Arabic)

"Why do anything?," in New York Times, 17 September 2016 (Also available in Chinese, Turkish, Serbian, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Farsi)

"Everyone fails, but only the wise find humility," in Aeon, 18 August 2016 (Also available in Arabic, Hebrew, Bulgarian)

"A Continental Mind" [Review of The Idea of Europe, by George Steiner], in Spiked Review (May 2016) (Also available in Chinese)

“Existentialism and Sartre captured spirit of the times” [Review of The Existentialist Moment, by Patrick Baert], in The Australian, 20 February 2016.

"Body of Work: The Dying Philosopher," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 27 September 2015.

(with Robert Zaretsky), "The Idea of Europe," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 12 August 2015 (Also available in German)

“Change Comes From the Margins,” in New York Times, 30 June 2015 (Also available in Vietnamese)

"Why People are Willing to Die for an Idea," in Washington Post, 18 June 2015 (Also available in Chinese, Hebrew)

"Dada Life" [Review of TaTa Dada, by Marius Hentea], in Times Literary Supplement, 22 May 2015 (Reprint in The Wall Street Journal).

"Philosophy as a Bloody Affair," in The European Magazine, 18 May 2015 (Also available in Hungarian, Chinese, Farsi, Turkish)

"In Defense of Margins," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 9 May 2015 (Also available in Turkish)

"The Wisdom of the Exile," in New York Times, 16 August 2014 (Also available in Vietnamese)

"The Two Abysses of the Soul," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 31 July 2014 (Also available in Portuguese, Italian, Romanian).

"I survived the Nazis. And Soviets" [Review of The Hooligan's Return, by Norman Manea], in The Daily Beast, 6 April 2014 (Also available in Kurdish).

“Herta Müller’s Language of Resistance,” in Boston Review, 18 March 2014 (Also available in Spanish, Kurdish)

"In Praise of Failure," in New York Times, 15 December 2013 (Also available in Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, German, Farsi).

“Oh, the Delight” [Review of The Walls Behind the Curtain: East European Prison Literature, 1945-1990, by Harold B Segel, Ed.], in Times Literary Supplement, No. 576 (6 September 2013).

"Born Again in a Second Language," in New York Times, 4 August 2013 (Also available in Vietnamese, German, Spanish, Chinese, Kurdish, Farsi, Arabic)

“Penetrating Philosopher Loves a Paradox” [Review of The Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Philosophy, by Simon Critchley], in The Australian, 4 May 2013.

"Sublime and not too serious" [Review of Internationala mea. Cronica unei vieti, by Ion Ianosi], in Times Literary Supplement, No. 5736 (8 March 2013), p. 27. (Also available in Romanian)

"Half-lives in the Shadow of Starvation" [Review of The Hunger Angel, by Herta Müller], in The Australian, 1 February 2013 (Also available in Kurdish)

"Philosophy as an Art of Living," in Los Angeles Review of Books, 14 February 2012 (Also available in Farsi)

"The Political Psychology of Self-Immolation," in The New Statesman, 17 September 2012 (Also available in Spanish)

“Snail in Babel” [Review-essay on The Lair & The Fifth Impossibility. Essays on Exile and Language, both by Norman Manea], in Times Literary Supplement, No. 5709 (31 August 2012) (Also available in French).

Review of Introduction to Antiphilosophy, by Boris Groys, in Times Higher Education, 26 July 2012

"The Politics of Tibetan Self-Immolations," on CNN.com (CNN Opinion), 28 March 2012

"Caught in Quarrels with God" [Review of The Terror of God, by Navid Kermani], in The Australian, 25 February 2012.

Review of Anti-Nietzsche, by Malcolm Bull, in Times Higher Education, 19 January 2012

"Scaling the 'Wall in the Head'," in New York Times, 27 November 2011 (Also available in Spanish, Portuguese, Farsi).

Review of American Nietzsche. A History of An Icon and His Ideas, by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, in Times Higher Education, 3 November 2011.

"Philosophy As an Art of Dying," in New York Times, 12 June 2011 (Also available in Spanish, Arabic).

"A Light for the Future: On the Political Uses of a Dying Body," in Dissent, 23 May 2011 (Also available in Hungarian).

"Ladri di Parole," in Lettera43 (Quotidiano Online Indipendente), 7 March 2011 [in Italian] (Also available in Romanian)

"Why Bouazizi burning set Arab world afire" [op-ed piece], The Christian Science Monitor, 8 February 2011

"Uprising in Tunisia: a political act of self-immolation" [op-ed piece], in The Globe & Mail, 31 January 2011

"Quixotic Being" [Review of Six Maladies of the Contemporary Spirit by Constantin Noica], in Times Literary Supplement, No 5621 (24 December 2010), p. 36.

Review of Occurrence in the Immediate Reality by Max Blecher, in Times Literary Supplement, No. 5601 (6 August 2010), p. 26.

"The Evil of Banality" [Review of The Appointment, by Herta Müller], in The Globe & Mail (13 February 2010)

"In Shambles" [Review of Searching for Cioran, by Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston], in Times Literary Supplement, No. 5558 (9 October 2009), p. 9.

"Fascinating Life of a Philosopher Martyr" [Review of Giordano Bruno. Philosopher/Heretic, by Ingrid Rowland], in The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 15 2009.