Bawer contributed to the arts journal "The New Criterion" every month between October 1983 and May 1993. A "New York Times Magazine" article "The Changing World of New York Intellectuals", foregrounded the contributors to "The New Criterion", observing that "The youthful contributors to Hilton Kramer's magazine—Bruce Bawer, Mimi Kramer, Roger Kimball—are still in their 20s, but they manage to sound like the British critic F.R. Leavis. Their articles are full of pronouncements about 'moral values,' 'the crisis in the humanities,' 'the significance of art.' Their mission is to defend American culture against shoddy merchandise, and they don't shirk from the task."