Matthew Zipf is a Ph.D. candidate in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. and from the University of Chicago Law School with an M.L.S.

He is working on his debut essay collection.

The best way to support his work is to subscribe to The Opening Frame. It’s free.

You can reach him at zipf [at] uchicago [dot] edu.

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2025 Adam Zagajewski Prize, University of Chicago
2025 Katharine Bakeless Nason Scholarship, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference
2025 Nonfiction Fellow, Vermont Studio Center
2024–25 Graduate Lecturer, Pozen Center for Human Rights
2023–24 Ernst Freund Fellow in Law and Philosophy

Research support from the American Historical Association, the Pozen Center for Human Rights, Friends of the Princeton University Library, and the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression.

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Art Criticism

“Neglected Seasons,” The Threepenny Review (Spring 2025).
“‘It Was Kind of Cynical, But It Worked’: An Interview with Jack Pierson,” Gulf Coast (Winter/Spring 2025).
“Peter Hujar’s Backstage Portraits,” The Threepenny Review (Summer 2024).

Reporting

“Seoul – Pyeongyang – Paris,” Liberties (forthcoming).

Three Portraits of Renata Adler

“Do Something, Take Pains,” The Sewanee Review (Summer 2025).
“In the Matter of the Commas,” The American Scholar (Spring 2025).
“A Girl’s Hair Caught Fire,” Liberties (Summer 2024).

Academic Publications

“Equality as a Feint: Philip Roth and Alimony Law,” in Connubial Fictions: The Evolution of American Marriage in Law and Literature, Oxford UP (forthcoming).