Tag: Author features

Carving out the Commons: Fighting Displacement in the Capitalist City

March 21, 2018

BY AMANDA HURONAssistant professor of interdisciplinary social sciences at the University of the District of Columbia On Christmas Eve 1977, the working-class residents of an apartment complex in Washington, D.C., all received eviction notices. They had 90 days to get out; the owner of the complex wanted to rip it down and replace it with … More Carving out the Commons: Fighting Displacement in the Capitalist City

On gaming, athletes, and individual glory . . . oh, Mercy!

March 13, 2018

CHRISTOPHER A. PAULAssociate Professor, Seattle University The core argument in my book is that video games are an actualized meritocracy, a realm in which the values of hard work and skill have been pushed to their extremes and the result is a toxic community that focuses more on the celebration of individual glory than on … More On gaming, athletes, and individual glory . . . oh, Mercy!

International Women’s Day 2018: On feminism’s political message and its past, present, and future.

March 8, 2018

BY JANET HALLEY, PRABHA KOTISWARAN, RACHEL REBOUCHÉ, AND HILA SHAMIR As we celebrate International Women’s Day, it is hard not to be struck by how ubiquitous the political message of feminism is. Until recently, announcing one’s feminist credentials elicited looks of surprise, incomprehension, or outright hostility. Fast forward to 2018 and Sweden has a foreign … More International Women’s Day 2018: On feminism’s political message and its past, present, and future.

Sergei Eisenstein and the Ecstasies of the Book.

March 1, 2018

BY LUKA ARSENJUKUniversity of Maryland, College Park “It certainly seems that all art forms in their extreme manifestations, i.e. where they attempt to expand the limits of their potential and their material, invariably end up by trying to appropriate the rudiments of the art of the future: the art of cinema.” In Sergei Eisenstein’s conception, … More Sergei Eisenstein and the Ecstasies of the Book.

A lesson in managing uncertainty: digitizing the First German Autumn Salon

February 21, 2018

Image: Jenny Anger, First German Autumn Salon Reconstruction Project. BY JENNY ANGERProfessor of art history, Grinnell College A trio of international exhibitions defined the parameters of modern art ca. 1912-13: the Sonderbund (Cologne 1912), the Armory Show (New York 1913), and the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon (First German Autumn Salon, Berlin 1913). The Armory Show is … More A lesson in managing uncertainty: digitizing the First German Autumn Salon

On truthiness and trustworthiness: Why nonfiction is best defined as a literature of questions.

February 8, 2018

BY JOE SUTLIFF SANDERSUniversity of Cambridge It’s a cliché that by the time one finishes writing a book, one hates it. Well, I have just finished a book—A Literature of Questions: Nonfiction for the Critical Child—and if it’s not quite true that I hate it, it’s certainly true that this book continues to cause me … More On truthiness and trustworthiness: Why nonfiction is best defined as a literature of questions.

Lookin’ to get silly in Hibbing: Toby Thompson on Echo Star Helstrom, the "Girl from the North Country."

January 25, 2018

Image by Toby Thompson. Image by Echo Helstrom. BY TOBY THOMPSON Echo Star Helmstrom, widely thought to have been the inspiration for Bob Dylan’s song “Girl from the North Country,” died on January 15th. She was 75 and had been my friend for nearly 50 years. She had a combination of vulnerability and toughness that … More Lookin’ to get silly in Hibbing: Toby Thompson on Echo Star Helstrom, the "Girl from the North Country."

Skol Vikings! (But don’t break my heart again.)

January 17, 2018

BY ARMAND PETERSON Days later, Vikings fans are still talking about it, what some are already calling the “Minneapolis Miracle.” With only ten seconds left in the game and the ball on the Vikings’ 39-yard line, quarterback Case Keenum threw a sideline pass to Stefon Diggs, who made a leaping catch and an improbable run … More Skol Vikings! (But don’t break my heart again.)

Modernism and the Memorial: Public remembrance in the US and Germany.

January 12, 2018

KATHLEEN JAMES-CHAKRABORTYProfessor of art history at University College Dublin 2017 might turn out to be the year in which white Americans ceased to take Confederate monuments lightly; of course, their African-American neighbors never had. The erection of Maya Lin’s remarkable Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC, in 1982, inaugurated a memorial boom in the United … More Modernism and the Memorial: Public remembrance in the US and Germany.

Posthumous posthumanism: Subverting the relationship between living and dead matter.

January 3, 2018

Evan Rachel Wood in Westworld, created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy (HBO, 2016). Westworld reconceptualizes lived experience by asking what “counts” as humanand what counts as death. ERIN E. EDWARDS Bring her back online. Westworld opens with a disembodied voice commanding the robotic “host,” Dolores Abernathy, to emerge from “sleep mode.” Dolores awakens into … More Posthumous posthumanism: Subverting the relationship between living and dead matter.