A Case for Pretending: Why Identity Is a Sham and Authenticity an Illusion
The tighter we cling to any aspect of self-identity, the more we suffer and the more vital it becomes to release our grip.
identity
Comedy Series ‘Detectorists’ Digs into the Pastoral with Humor
The comedy series Detectorists turns a humble hobby into a humorous meditation on Englishness that even Thomas Hardy would enjoy.
On Ireland’s Painful Emergence into the Modern World
Fintan O’Toole’s lucid history of Ireland, We Don’t Know Ourselves, is a vivid telling of how his country’s culture of silence and repression was broken open.
What Is Identity in Our Digital Age of ‘The Extreme Self’?
Do you look “real” in virtual space? Such existential questions are central to ‘The Extreme Self’, which explores identity in our digital world.
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‘The New Woman Behind the Camera’ Exhibit Celebrates a Gaze of Her Own
The New Woman Behind the Camera, an exhibition of midcentury women photographers, captures the ways they documented a changing world and reimagined their place within it.
Between the Pages of Contemporary Asian American Literature
There’s an evolution in contemporary Asian American literature from the usual immigrant story to something more nuanced and varied, something that’s more reflective of the varieties of “Asian Americaness”.
The Dance of Male Forms in Denis’ ‘Beau travail’
Claire Denis' masterwork of cinematic poetry, Beau travail, is a cinematic ballet that tracks through tone and style the sublimation of violent masculine complexes into the silent convulsions of male angst.
“I’ll See You Later”: Repetition and Time in Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘All About My Mother’
There are mythical moments in Almodóvar’s All About My Mother. We are meant to register repetition in the story as something wonderfully strange, a connection across the chasm of impossibility.
‘Trans Power’ Is a Celebration of Radical Power and Beauty
Juno Roche's Trans Power discusses trans identity not as a passageway between one of two linear destinations, but as a destination of its own.
Does Inclusivity Mean That Everyone Does the Same Thing?
What is the meaning of diversity in today’s world? Russell Jacoby raises and addresses some pertinent questions in his latest work, On Diversity.
‘Memento’ Is the Movie of the Attention Economy
We are afraid of time, and so like Leonard in Memento, we kill it, compulsively and indiscriminately.