Mutability and Mortality
Perhaps my favorite in this set of personal homages is “Ode to the Arts and Humanities Staff” which sings the praises of the otherwise unseen and unsung heroes, the clerical and support staffs that keep universities and academic departments running.
Translating the Chinese Diaspora
For many of the characters in Yan’s stories, particularly those who find themselves alone in a foreign land, the feeling of always wishing to be elsewhere captures a state of longing that appears to be the most permanent fixture of their interrupted lives.
The Two Lives of a Poet
There are passionate and delicate love poems that bring the landscape to life: “with blown pine needles the wind / writes love’s calligraphy upon the snow.”
The Quiet Ticking of Minutes
Rather than compressing monumental developments into a few minutes of reading time, 𝑅𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 attempts to recreate the experience of living that life, encouraging the reader to inhabit the quiet ticking of minutes passing by as these women write shopping lists, forage for mushrooms, or supervise repairs.
American Outlaws
Hyden discerns in “Born in the U.S.A.” a compromise necessary for a massively popular arena-rock act intending to speak to as large an audience as possible.
Looking at Roman Wall Paintings in Oklahoma
Roman wall paintings, executed in the fresco technique, are among the most vivid artifacts from the ancient world.
To Like, Or Not To Like?
For over ten years, media theorist Jonathan Gray has pushed beyond studies of fandom, the gathering of likers around their favorite programming, to explore the realm of what he terms dislike.
Against Linear History
To be modern is to privilege the present over the past.
Gambling, Debt, and Literary Fortune
Dostoevsky lost everything at the Wiesbaden casino, but the episode seemed to finally reveal to him the true depth of his habit, that it threatened not only his marriage but the life of his wife.
Christoph Büchel Superstar
The crude outlines of the Fondazione Prada exhibition form a critique of socially responsible capital, the benevolent art world, and the charity complex, too.
A Chilling Work of Cinema
If we are to ever fully grasp all of the ghastly dimensions of the Holocaust’s horrors—and if we wish to prevent another one—we need to understand the cold, calculating efficiency with which the Final Solution was implemented, and how so many ordinary human beings were able, psychologically speaking, to do what they did to other human beings.
Is Alex Garland’s 𝘾𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙡 𝙒𝙖𝙧 Believable?
In Garland’s film, the protagonist’s agency is much the same as that of the director—taking photos. The search is on for objectivity. A divided country needs an absolute truth, and this is what a photograph pretends to offer.
The Authentic Warhol?
Can one write an effective biography when its subject eradicated himself from much of his artwork (even, ironically, in his self-portraits), intentionally misled friends and reporters, and left behind an archive that is as vast as it is confounding?
Redemption is Possible
Ruth is about all those components of a nation: family, clan, townsmen, the interaction of citizens and foreigners, and all of these acting in relationship to the law, or to God’s words. “It is a prosaic story of ordinary life… whose raison d’être is to enact the sanctification of everyday life in the home, on the land, and with one’s neighbors.”
Time-Traveling with Line
The question of line depth and how it changes the viewer’s perception play out especially in the exhibition’s white gesso and clay reliefs.
Africa Rising
Although Sub-Saharan Africa holds 60% of the world’s not-yet-cultivated arable land, food scarcity is a top concern, particularly in view of the worsening climate crisis.
Retelling the Story of American Music
Dvořák practiced what he preached, and the result was (in the view of many) the finest work of American classical music ever written.
