October 2013

Woodrow Wilson, 1919 by Eric S. Yellin Progress is never inevitable, even in reform eras. The United States at the turn of the twentieth century was in a progressive mood. It was a time in which the nation’s leaders tackled some of modern life’s most vexing problems: from taming...

On 2 October, 2013, we were confronted with a puzzling piece of news: Vladimir Putin had allegedly been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. After checking that the news did not come via Punch — and that we were not in April — true befuddlement sank in: apparently no...

Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the land of Moab, William Blake, 1795 by Emily McAvan In this paper I read the Book of Ruth from the Hebrew Bible in relation to modern Jewish feminist and queer theories. I trace the movement in the narrative between mourning...

The first time I visited Leipzig, Germany was late in the winter of 1992, not long after the much-hyped reunification. The East was still very much “The East,” and though money was pouring in from the federal government, no one really seemed to know what the rules were. Prices...

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with...

Lightbulb and Book, Tim Mara, 1995-6 From Eurozine: Many books have been written about the future of the book, but the truth is that we still know little about the subject. The upshot of this paradoxical loop: the book has a glorious past and an unsettling present but, as...

Readers of Things Fall Apart will recall the moment in the penultimate chapter of the novel when the gathering of the people of Umuofia is rudely interrupted by messengers from the white man. The messengers are confronted by Okonkwo, who happens to have taken a position at the very...

From Dreamaphage, Jason Nelson, 2004 by Maria Angel and Anna Gibbs riting is indeed an act in league with the past and the future, but it also requires that a body move through the space of the now. The gestures of writing can make the body present as well...

by Rauan Klassnik  *** anyone familiar with Penny Goring (her work, her Tumblr, her Tweets) will understand why I’m chuffed to be featuring her here in the 3rd installment of my UK Author’s Spotlight. anyone not familiar with Penny should check her out. most every link in this post...

Last week while reading Samuel Beckett’s Company, I came across the phrase ‘a block hat’. Beckett describes his solitary protagonist lying on his back in the dark remembering the times when he walked in the countryside or the coast, with his father, as a child, and as an adult,...

Butterfly Man (Red), Arthur Boyd, 1970 by Paige Cohen I first heard EJ Koh read around one year ago at The Strand Bookstore in New York City. A year ago, we were both still MFA students living on opposite ends of Manhattan, myself a fiction candidate at The New...

Events have shown that the Obama Administration never wanted to get directly involved in the Syrian armed conflict. Its publicity stunt about hurling a few tomahawk missiles to punish the Syrian regime revealed President Barack Obama’s embarrassment about drawing a red line in the sand regarding using chemical weapons...