Susie Linfield

Susie Linfield

Professor

Susie Linfield writes about the intersection of culture and politics for a wide array of publications. Recent essays have addressed Syrian torture photographs (the New York Review of Books Daily and the New York Times), war photography (Aperture and the Nation), the Zionist Left in Israel (the Boston Review), an anti-Vietnam War classic (Bookforum), and the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration (Dissent).

Professor Linfield’s latest book is The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky (Yale University Press, 2019). In this work, she explores how eight intellectuals on the Left in the U.S., France, and England analyzed the Zionist movement and, later, the State of Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Professor Linfield’s previous book, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence (University of Chicago Press, 2010), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. It has been translated into Italian, Turkish, and Korean.

For six years, Professor Linfield was a critic for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Her work has appeared the Washington Post Book World, the New Republic, Dissent, Bookforum, and the Village Voice, among other publications. Her essays have been translated into German, French, Italian, and Spanish.

In 2013, Professor Linfield was the Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. She serves on the editorial boards of Dissent and Photography and Culture, and is a member of the New York Institute of the Humanities.

From its founding in 1995 until 2014, Professor Linfield was instrumental in building NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism program, first as associate director and then as director.

Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Linfield was the editor in chief of American Film, the deputy editor of the Village Voice, and the arts editor of the Washington Post.

Professor Linfield received her B.A. from Oberlin College, where she studied American history, and her M.A. in journalism from NYU (minor: documentary film). She was born and raised in New York City. For seven years she attended George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and danced with the New York City Ballet.

 
 

Published Articles & Essays

Dissent
January 22nd, 2024
In Defense of Universalism
Dissent Magazine, Winter 2024 Susie Linfield
Professor
Jungle World
January 11th, 2024
Die Rückkehr der progressiven Abscheulichkeiten
Susie Linfield
Professor
Index on Censorship logo
December 22nd, 2023
The Unravelling of Academic Freedom on US Campuses
Susie Linfield
Professor
Quillette logo
November 18th, 2023
The Return of the Progressive Atrocity
Susie Linfield
Professor
Boston Globe logo. Reads "Boston Globe"
October 20th, 2023
9/11, apartheid, and other metaphors that make people misunderstand Israel and Palestine
Susie Linfield
Professor
The Atlantic
August 14th, 2023
Israel’s Democracy Movement Has Something Important to Teach Us
Susie Linfield
Professor
Dissent
July 1st, 2022
Responses to Aziz Rana
Contributor: Susie Linfield
Professor
On the Media
June 10th, 2022
Should the Country See What an Assault Rifle Does to the Body of a Child?
Interview with Susie Linfield
Professor
The New York Times
May 31st, 2022
Should We Be Forced to See Exactly What an AR-15 Does to a 10-Year-Old?
Susie Linfield
Professor
The New York Review of Books
May 26th, 2022
How Do Whispers Become Movements?
Susie Linfield
Professor
Sapir
May 1st, 2022
Amnesty International’s Israel Problem — and Mine
Susie Linfield
Professor
Los Angeles Times
April 7th, 2022
Op-Ed: Why pictures of the horrors in Ukraine can strengthen our political will
Susie Linfield
Professor
The Atlantic
October 24th, 2021
Palestine Isn’t Ferguson
Susie Linfield
Professor
The New York Times
February 16th, 2021
When Genocide Is Caught on Film (Book review of “The Ravine”)
Susie Linfield
Professor
Book: The Lion's Den
March 26th, 2019
The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky
Susie Linfield
Professor
The New York Review of Books
February 9th, 2019
Syria’s Torture Photos: Witness to Atrocity
Susie Linfield
Professor
Dissent
October 1st, 2018
Growing Up After Genocide
Susie Linfield
Professor
Dissent
October 1st, 2017
Neither Master Nor Subject: Zionism, Empire, and the Balfour Declaration
Susie Linfield
Professor
The New York Times
January 27th, 2014
Advertisements for Death
Susie Linfield
Professor
The Nation
January 14th, 2014
Pictures Without an Exhibition
Susie Linfield
Professor
Guernica
December 16th, 2013
From Left Field
Susie Linfield
Professor
Boston Review
November 13th, 2013
Letter from Israel: Leftists on Zionism’s Past, Present, and Future
Susie Linfield
Professor
Dissent
October 1st, 2013
Zionism and Its Discontents
Susie Linfield
Professor
Aperture
July 22nd, 2013
Embedded Images
Susie Linfield
Professor
Dissent
July 12th, 2013
Letter from Berlin: Utopia or Auschwitz?
Susie Linfield
Professor
The Nation
October 30th, 2012
The Journeys of Fred Halliday
Susie Linfield
Professor
Guernica
June 15th, 2012
The Hubris and Despair of War Journalism
Susie Linfield
Professor
The new republic publication logo
January 30th, 2012
The Pains of the Pioneers
Susie Linfield
Professor
Guernica
December 21st, 2011
The Best and the Worst Events of 2011
Susie Linfield
Professor
Aperture
September 12th, 2011
The Anxiety of Images
Susie Linfield
Professor
New York Magazine
August 27th, 2011
Jumpers
Susie Linfield
Professor
The new republic publication logo
August 3rd, 2011
The Art of Pain
Susie Linfield
Professor
American Suburb X
January 1st, 2011
An Excerpt from “The Cruel Radiance”
Susie Linfield
Professor
Linfield – The Cruel Radiance
November 24th, 2010
The Cruel Radiance
Susie Linfield
Professor
Tablet
October 28th, 2010
Picture Imperfect
Susie Linfield
Professor
The Forward
October 8th, 2010
Batsheva Dances, Challenging Gender–and Demonstrators
Susie Linfield
Professor
Guernica
October 1st, 2010
Here is New York
Susie Linfield
Professor
New Humanist
September 28th, 2010
Aid Wars
Susie Linfield
Professor
Dissent
August 17th, 2010
What’s Right with This Picture?
Susie Linfield
Professor
Guernica
July 1st, 2010
Living with the Enemy
Susie Linfield
Professor
Guernica
July 1st, 2010
Living with the Enemy
Susie Linfield
Professor
The Washington Post
January 3rd, 2010
Man’s Inhumanity to Man
Susie Linfield
Professor
Truth Dig
June 5th, 2009
How to Think About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Susie Linfield
Professor
The Nation
May 5th, 2008
Every Photo an Archive
Susie Linfield
Professor
Boston Review
September 23rd, 2006
The Treacherous Medium
Susie Linfield
Professor
Boston Review
October 1st, 2005
A Witness to Murder
Susie Linfield
Professor
Boston Review
April 1st, 2005
Robert Capa’s Hope
Susie Linfield
Professor
Boston Review
June 1st, 2000
Trading Truth for Justice?
Susie Linfield
Professor