Front Cover
Fresco of a mask on vine leaves and bunches of grapes from the east wall of triclinium 13, House of V. Popidius, Pompeii VII.14.9, 55 x 55 cm, first century CE. National Archaeological Museum of Naples (inv. 9798). Photo: Flickr/Public Domain.
Current Affairs
Philokleon Goes Viral
Aristophanes scholar Matthew C. Farmer has suggested that the Trump campaign slogan “Make American Great Again” finds parallels in several passages in Wasps in which supporters of Kleon express a nostalgic longing for the “good old days” of the Athenian past.
Climate of Violence
Our intelligence is multiple, fractured, and spread across billions of people and thousands of institutions.
What a Nation Isn’t
Recognizing the distinction between unity and uniformity—between, on the one hand, a national unity made up of divergent traditions and, on the other, an unrealistic national uniformity that is rarely manifested except during brief, unsustainable periods of patriotic enthusiasm—is an elementary prerequisite for cultural history and analysis.
Against Linear History
To be modern is to privilege the present over the past.
Literary Lives
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. Robert Trammell is an avatar of the Dallas underground. What is most appealing about O’Connor’s work is that, in it, she is not afraid to look into the unknown and let it remain unknown—to give it revelation without resolution. What could be more of a California archetype, a California life, perhaps even a California cliché, Haven argues, than a mid-century émigré coming to a place that is held up as a place, a state of mind, of constant reinvention? 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.
To Like, Or Not To Like?
Not Furnishing Factual Answers
Revelation Without Resolution
The Power of Place and Time
Gambling, Debt, and Literary Fortune
Folio
Musical Spheres
Lightness, Panache, and Glistening Sonorities
Keeley’s music is genial and filled with lightness and panache… While Carl’s work is post-impressionistic, and about space and time, it utilizes materials in a most sophisticated and, dare one say, classical way.
A Journey on the Way of Bach
Moller situates Bachian counterpoint between the Renaissance, with its emphasis on harmony (who listens to Palestrina for the tunes?), and the modern popular musical era, with its apotheosis of melody (who listens to Elvis for the harmony?).
Art Worlds
Evelyn Longman’s Genius of Electricity
Longman’s unusual choice to personify victory as an exuberant athlete instead of the traditional winged female figure exemplifies one key to her success: her ability to capture an institution’s message in a novel visual form.
Dave Hickey Now
Oppenheimer’s introduction tells the story of Hickey’s unrealized book project Pagan America—a country of a “large, secular, commercial democracy,” united by shared icons across cultural strata.
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?
Two Great Frenchmen in Seventeenth-Century Rome
Genre fantasies, which were popular in the seventeenth century, played a significant role in the process by which two French-born men who worked in Rome became identified as French painters.
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.
