Premee Mohamed’s Sci-Fi ‘We Speak Through the Mountain’ Is a Call for Cooperation
Premee Mohamed’s We Speak Through the Mountain is a school story set in a future that looks startlingly close to our times, sentient fungal infections notwithstanding.
Academia
Dualism in Photographer John Divola’s LAX NAZ Series
Photographer John Divola’s LAX NAZ series exterior and interior views ooze with useful, fun, and satiating dualism. However, dualism gets messy.
Teju Cole’s ‘Tremor’ Records a Post-COVID Landscape of Art and Rage
If there is any consolation to be had in Teju Cole’s slippery and sinuous Tremor, it’s not found in art or literature but in the music that permeates its pages.
‘Uncomfortable Television’ and the Postmillennial Spectator
Academic Hunter Hargraves’ Uncomfortable Television considers the postmillennial spectator an active participant and contributor to the neoliberal society that is shaped by today’s television.
Philosophy and Pop Harmonize on Scritti Politti’s ‘Songs to Remember’
In Scritti Politti’s Songs to Remember, Green Gartside comically challenges hegemonic structures in a perfect harmony of philosophy and pop.
How Pokémon and Japanese Media Created a Generation of ‘Monster Kids’
In Daniel Dockery’s Monster Kids Pikachus usher the pandemonium of Pokémania into the US, but his account of the phenomenon leaves readers wanting more.
Cultural Self-Aggrandizement Has Us ‘Playing Oppression’
In Playing Oppression, scholars Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson lay bare the colonialist origins of board games.
McKenzie Wark’s ‘Raving’ and the Need to Dissociate from the Body and Self
McKenzie Wark’s understanding of ravespace as a constructed situation in nonlinear ketamine-time comports with my experience raving on weekends as a freshman in college.
How to Read Lauren Berlant: ‘On The Inconvenience of Other People’
Lauren Berlant’s oeuvre provokes ambivalence. As with their posthumous collection On The Inconvenience of Other People I consume Berlant, and Berlant consumes me.
The Follies and Potentials of Higher Education: ‘The Real World of College’
The Real World of College offers a research-backed, level-headed, non-political assessment of higher education. It’s a breath of fresh air let in stuffy rooms.
Punk Literature 101: Recommended Readings
Stimulated by, then stimulating, certain writings, punk has been a change agent of literature, injecting energy and disruption into multiple genres.
Diana Ross Explored Black Music’s Rich History on ‘Red Hot Rhythm & Blues’
Thirty-five years ago, Red Hot Rhythm & Blues saw Diana Ross ambitiously and affectionately placing herself within the history of Black music.