The LeftEast interview with the American Marxist cultural theorist Fredric Jameson appeared a few days before the election, and its title — “People are saying ‘this is a new fascism’ and my answer is – not yet!” — has a different resonance now. There’s no indication of when, where, or how the interview was conducted, although some problems with the text suggest it was transcribed from a recording. … [Read more...]
Archives for 2016
Reviewing as First Draft of History
Last week Michiko Kakutani reviewed the first of two volumes of the latest Hitler biography for the New York Times. I’ve got Ian Kershaw’s double-decker biography, which is huge and ought suffice, but I read the review anyway, just to see what the occasion for another biography would be, short of, say, the author locating the real Hitler diaries. He hasn’t, and I finished the review no wiser … [Read more...]
Beyond a Boundary: The Extraterritorial C.L.R. James
I once told my telegenic comrade Dave Zirin (America's leading, if not only left-wing sports commentator) that, in my case. it is a matter of political responsibility not to appear on screen. Nonetheless, I serve as a talking head in Every Cook Can Govern: The Life, Work, and Impact of C.L.R. James, which premiers in London at the end of the month, with the DVD scheduled to be available in April. … [Read more...]
Coming Soon: Red Wedge, Issue #2
The second print issue of Red Wedge -- the tangible, magazine-format component of a larger project dedicated to "rekindling the revolutionary imagination" which includes a website, conference presentations, and who knows what all else -- goes to the printer in a few weeks, so it's a good time to reserve a copy. Or, better yet, to subscribe. The theme is "Art Against Global Apartheid," as explained … [Read more...]
Ecolalia
Umberto Eco died yesterday (Friday) at the age of 84. I've written about his work on occasion over the years, including something on his analysis of the comic strip Peanuts, That's not online. (My piece, that is.) As for Eco's commentary on Charles Schultz's work, it was published in Italian in 1963, and now available on the New York Review of Books site. It's too good not to quote: … [Read more...]
That’s What That’swhatshesaid Said
The show did go on -- despite a cease-and-desist order arriving an hour before Friday night's curtain for That'swhatshesaid in Seattle. Erin Pike's one-person, one-hour performance incorporates female roles from the most-produced plays of the 2014-15 season, as determined by American Theater magazine. The script was assembled ("written" doesn't seem like quite the right word here) by Courtney … [Read more...]
Niche marketing, ne plus ultra…
Apropos of nothing in particular.... because if I don't give in to impulse more readily, this blog is never going to take off.... a selection of offerings from the surprisingly crowded market for cat Tarot: from Elizabeth Wilson, Cultural Passions: "I don’t believe it’s possible to tell the future [...] However when, in the 1980s and 1990s, I gave “readings” at fundraising … [Read more...]
Historical Materialism 2016
It's not complete, but I've received a list of things scheduled to run in the journal Historical Materialism in 2016 and it's impressive. Here it is: … [Read more...]
Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Half-Baked Idea
Celebrate it or hate it as you will, Wikipedia has metamorphosed from its beginnings as a gangly cultural interloper into the de facto reference work of first resort..... My column from last week on Wikipedia's 15th birthday. And in one of the Half-Baked Ideas to Save the World (is that trademarked?) offered at the Random Nerds blogazine, editor-in-chief Bryce Rudow makes the case for "A Wiki … [Read more...]
Graphic nonfiction novels
Kent Worcester's article "The Graphics Juggernaut," posted last month at the website of New Politics magazine, looks at Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg by Kate Evans (Verso) and three other recent political "titles aimed at the words-and-pictures market" -- which is probably a more serviceable description than calling them "graphic nonfiction novels," come to think of it. Among the … [Read more...]