Our FEATURED ARTICLE:
“Shockjocks and Cheerleaders: Why you’re thinking about the Charlie Kirk assassination all wrong”
Article Author and RQ artist and contributor Julia Wald will be featured on the panel “Free to Assemble?” during RQ’s Founder’s Weekend, November 13 - 16 in Philadelphia.
Join us all weekend to discuss why political violence erodes our constitutional rights.
‘Rest in Piss’ sticker at the University of Pennsylvania, 2025. Photo by Julia Wald
“A Good Chance” by Charles Browning. Please see his current show in New York: 14BC Gallery, Friday, November 21, 2025, 5:00 PM to Saturday, December 6, 2025, 7:00 PM, and find his work in our FOUNDER’S issue.
In light of the continued political violence in our country, we are releasing, for free, our “Founders at 250 Collection.” It’s a curated look at our print magazine’s paid content from the last six years. We chose articles that center on personal and community resilience, constructive dialogue and the search for common ground, and the promotion of free expression and other American values.
More than half of our content isn’t at all related to these topics. We’re also an art magazine that features long-form artist profiles, books recommendations, reviews, personal essays, and fiction. (Beauty will save the world, as Dostoevsky wrote). But we were founded in part to promote viewpoint diversity and pluralism, and our work helping to create a culture of free expression feels more important than ever.
CURRENT ISSUE
FALL
2025
“CONSERVATION”
DON’T MISS:
Editor-in-chief Heather Shayne Blakeslee on why trading digs for dignity at the local level might help in the battle against our uncertain AI future /// At Camp Linden, the Philadelphia Ethical Society teaches kids about the wonders of nature /// Naomi Weiss asks if Big Tech investments in Pennsylvania are bad for our future, even if they’re good for our economy /// We recommend books by Yoram Hazony, Will Caverly, and Nate Blakeslee /// Managing Editor Lauren Earline Leonard talks with BalletX co-founder Christine Cox about 20 years of groundbreaking ballet in Philadelphia /// Julia Wald does a deep dive into the Charlie Kirk assassination and why we need to better understand what the internet is doing to us /// Pluralist Lab Executive Director Devin Scanlon argues that our country’s commitment to a multiplicity of voices is something we must conserve /// John Muir, a father of America’s conservation movement, on the beauty and strength of trees /// Sculptor Kathleen Studebaker imagines artwork that celebrates the color of fresh wood and protects the environment /// After a fire, artist Graham Franciose on how to begin again /// Braver Angels CEO Maury Giles encourages us to choose dignity while we contend with those who disagree with us—and asks us to build something together /// Sue Muncaster takes a bike trip through the mountains and questions how we should be interacting with our fellow Americans //
EXPLORE ISSUE EXCERPTS
The Reviews Are In…
“2024 Storyteller of the Year”
“Brilliant! I loved the entire enterprise.”
“A joy to leaf through—and read. It is heavily illustrated, with a mix of photographs, drawings, and comic panels, and it makes creative use of typography. The content includes an eclectic mix of essays, fiction, interviews, reviews, and recipes, making for a strong new title.”
“A homerun.”
“An ambitious, meticulously designed publication about arts, culture, politics, food, and Philadelphia. It offers journalism, fiction, poetry, photographs, graphics, and personal essays by a diverse and youthful crew of creatives... Clearly, RQ also is a place for writers to stretch, or perhaps meander, and for readers willing to follow.”
“A high-production arts and culture affair with fiction, poetry and essays... A New Yorker for Philly? Root Quarterly pulls inspiration from higher-brow general interest magazines like Harper’s, the Atlantic, California Sunday Magazine and the London-based Riposte.”
“Glorious. This is exactly what we need right now... This is our better angels and we owe it to ourselves, and all of us—and our future—to engage with art, and with science, with truth and with beauty, with honor, and without division.”