Left: Jo Champa, Chelsea Hotel, NYC, Helmut Newton, 1988. Right: Sasha Grey by Cain Todd Locating the murky distinction between pornography and erotic art has long exercised minds in many domains, philosophy amongst them. One of the chief ways in which philosophers have sought to draw the distinction is by illuminating the nature of the…
Read MoreWhitechapel, London, 1972. Photograph by Ian Berry. by Ali Rattansi While analysing multiculturalism in the UK, the Netherlands and France in my recent Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011), I had to confess that I had little idea what David Cameron’s “big society” project was going to mean for what remained of…
Read Moreby Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei and Jonas Staal Introduction The following two works were produced by visual artist Jonas Staal and writer Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei during a visit as artists in residence at The Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa during the summer of 2010. Both works were produced in situ and comprised…
Read MoreAnita Desai by James Warner In The Artist of Disappearance, Anita Desai meditates on the private and fragile nature of the creative act. Her nostalgic visions of India are also parables of the self’s search for authenticity. Anita Desai’s work has often shown us the remnants of a glorious past crumbling in the glare of…
Read Moreby Carl Wennerlind When the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza received word of a successful transmutation of lead into gold in December of 1666, he quickly sought to quell his skepticism by personally visiting the adept, and the visit left him fully convinced of the veracity of the adept’s account. Spinoza was just one of many…
Read MoreRosetta, ARP Sélection, 1999 by R.D. Crano Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, by Joseph Mai, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 156 pp. Since the Dardenne brothers first broke onto the international cinema scene with La promesse (1996) a decade and a half ago, their work has enjoyed immense critical acclaim and an encouraging degree of popular…
Read MoreFrom Caged Heat, New World Pictures, 1974 by Kathleen Cairns Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars, and Artists, Jodie Michelle Lawston, Ashley E. Lucas, eds., Albany: State University of New York Press, 352 pp. Once the cell doors slam behind them, virtually all prisoners exist in a netherworld–invisible to people outside, while inside they are…
Read MoreGoogle office, Zurich by Abe Walker Abstract This article takes as its central object of study Google’s innovative time off program, colloquially known as ‘20 Percent Time’. This program represents a radical departure from conventional approaches to organizing the workday, and is quickly gaining traction in the technology sector and beyond. Under the directive of…
Read Moreby Rosemary Mosco About the Artist: Rosemary Mosco is a field naturalist by training, who is interested in connecting people with environmental science through field experiences and creative communication projects. Her nature cartoons have appeared in several publications including The Globe and Mail and Torontoist.
Read MoreThe Social Network, Columbia Pictures, 2010 by Justin E. H. Smith I joined Facebook in September, 2007. My ‘timeline’, when I studied it for the last time yesterday evening, indicated very little activity until around April, 2008, at which point I, apparently, began posting frivolous status updates about my personal life, my tribulations and thoughts,…
Read MoreFrom The Boston Review: LG: In the future, scientists may be relying on open-source projects and data sharing. As you well know, not everyone wants to share. Why do scientists lock up their data? MN: To some extent, it’s just a question of, “What are the incentives for people to take their best ideas and…
Read MoreBank of Chosen, Seoul by Michael Schiltz We are living through ominous times. In the wake of the 2008 subprime crisis, the world economy has been battered by a series of profound shocks that have not been experienced since the 1930s. A series of shocks, indeed, because, as was the case in the Great Depression,…
Read MoreStephen Colbert’s super PAC “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow” has spent $15,000 on ads supporting Herman Cain in South Carolina. by Kim Barker Sure, there’s the GOP symbol, but the real elephant in the room at any of the Republican debates since December has been the super PAC, the turbocharged political action committee able…
Read MoreKing Midas turns his daughter to gold, from A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls by Nathaniel Hawthorn, 1893 by Leslie Paul Thiele Sustainability is quickly becoming the lingua franca of public discourse. It is endorsed by government agencies around the globe, championed by increasing numbers of international non-governmental organizations, and put into daily practice…
Read MoreDavid Graeber From The White Review: The White Review — You have written about how in Madagascar one of the strategies that was used to overthrow state rule, particularly during the French colonial period, was to proxy back power relations into this shadow-world mediated by rituals and magic – a world that the French couldn’t…
Read MoreSacrifice of Isaac, Rembrant, 1635 From Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: One of the most valuable aspects of Mulder’s book is the reflection it promotes on the possible conversation between Kierkegaard and St. Thomas Aquinas. In chapter 2, for example, in a discussion of Fear and Trembling, Mulder argues that the focus Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes de…
Read MoreMargaret Sanger From Barnes and Noble Review: Now is a fitting time to reconsider the life of Margaret Sanger. The United Nations marked October 31st as the day the global population reached 7 billion, a milestone greeted with both celebration and consternation around the world. Sanger would have no doubt felt the latter: after World…
Read MoreHarem scene, from Memorie Turche, Museo Civico Correr, Cicogna, 1971 by Eric Dursteler In 1559, a ship sailed from Venice to the Dalmatian coast. On board were a mother and her four children, including her young daughter, Beatrice Michiel. As they crossed the Adriatic, corsairs waylaid the ship and took the family captive. The mother…
Read MoreDesigned by a St Petersburg art collective, “Pproffessors”, the Little Red Men first appeared in Perm in 2010. The sculptures have split local opinion by Yelena Fedotova Marat Gelman is a well-known Moscow cultural figure. In 2008 he went to curate the Museum of Contemporary Art in provincial Perm, where his ideas for a cultural…
Read Moreby Serkan Gorkemli In 2007, Kaos GL, a bimonthly publication of the Kaos Gay and Lesbian Cultural Research and Solidarity Association in Ankara, Turkey, devoted its November/December issue to “Turkiye’nin Gay Ikonlari” (Turkey’s Gay Icons). The magazine surveyed readers and published a list of the ten most popular gay icons in Turkey. Various well-known celebrities…
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