Pamela Ronald leads a forum on GMOs with replies from Marc Gunther, Margaret Mellon, Rosamond Naylor, Nina Fedoroff, Jack Heinemann, and others. Samuel Farber explores Raúl Castro's Cuba; new translations of Edmundo Paz Soldán; Leland de la Durantaye on Italo Calvino; Alice Whitwham on John Ashbery, and more.

Barbara H. Fried leads a forum on blame, moral philosophy, and public philosophy with replies from Paul Bloom, Brian Leiter, T. M. Scanlon, and others. Albert Dzur considers the dismal present and more hopeful future of the American jury; a tale of hunting down Nazi loot; Vivian Gornick on Albert Camus; Calvin Bedient defends "heart" poetry against "head" poetry.

Richard M. Locke leads a forum on corporate responsibility for factory workers, with responses from Isaac Shapiro, Layna Mosley, and others; Pamela S. Karlan on guns and the end of originalism; Lili Loofbourow on privatized education in Chile; Peter Godfrey-Smith on what it's like to be an octopus; and more.

Rob Reich on the role of foundations in a democracy, with replies from Paul Brest, Larry Kramer, Diane Ravitch, and others. Claude Fischer observes the end of the gender revolution; torture in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty; a possibly innocent man stuck in jail.

Full issue

Essays on democracy in Latin America with Roberto Gargarella, Pedro Salazar Ugarte on demographics in Mexico, Leonardo Avritzer on Brazil's direct democracy, and F. Daniel Hidalgo on electronic voting in Brazil. Claude Fischer on online dating and monogamy; an essay "Femininjas" from Elizabeth Hand on women in fiction.

Mike Konczal leads a forum on debt relief, with responses from Dean Baker, Barbara Fried, and more; Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson discuss the moral case for free markets; new poetry from John Ashbery, epic fiction from Ariel Dorfman. Plus, a special web only discussion on Chris Hedges's "War Is Betrayal".

James J. Heckman leads the forum on early childhood experiences and social mobility, with replies from Geoffrey Canada, Carol Dweck, Charles Murray, and others. William Hogeland on the liberal originalism; are conservatives more moral than liberals?; how would Americans balance the national debt.

Martin Gilens leads the forum on money and political influence, with replies from Matthew Yglesias, Nancy Rosenblum, Barbara Sinclair, Senator Russ Feingold, and others. Chris Hedges on myths of war; Elaine Scarry argues that poetry changed the world; why Americans don't take vacations; terror, power, and cruelty at Israeli checkpoints.