What Will Come? COVID-19 and the Politics of Economic Depression
The financial crash of 2008-2010 reemphasized that traumatic economic shifts drive political change, so what might we imagine — or fear — will emerge from the COVID-19 depression?
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The Kids Might Be Alright: Progress as Virtue in Contemporary Children’s Literature
Dave Eggers and Colin Meloy take on the antagonistic and nativist rhetoric in American politics and culture with children's books intent on generating empathy.
Ian McEwan’s Brexit Satire, ‘The Cockroach’, Leaves Little to the Imagination
With his latest, The Cockroach, the otherwise masterful British novelist Ian McEwan proves that too much cleverness can kill satire.
Queer Capitalism: A Street-Level, #LGBTQ Response to Life in the Times of Trumpism
Legislation, the vehicle of idealists, is bereft of ideas in the times of Trumpism. We are left to fend for ourselves.
‘Designated Survivor’ S3: How Do We Deal with Neo-Fascists, Anyway?
Designated Survivor Season Three effectively criticizes the Trump administration and poses complex questions in our time of the rise of the extreme right.
Is Progressive-Populism Our Best Option in These Troubled Times?
When order ruptures it leads to a state of crisis manifest in many ways, as we see emerging throughout the world. What can we do?
Does Amber Tamblyn’s ‘Era of Ignition’ Ignite Your Flame?
Actor Amber Tamblyn is aspiring to something deeper than just the chronicle of herself as a young ingénue who came of age as a TV star in her memoir, Era of Ignition. In our politically tumultuous times, does she succeed?
AOC Comic ‘New Party, Who Dis?’ Makes Clear the Politics of the Superhero Genre
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comic New Party, Who Dis? - with its ninjas, spaceships, dancing, explosions, FDR, wrestling, and orange hair - names and satirizes the oppressive dog whistles that undermine marginalized peoples in America and in American politics.
Open Court’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Philosophy Emphasizes Caution and Awareness
As far as The Handmaid's Tale and Philosophy is concerned, Trump et al are the exact bastards you're not supposed to let grind you down.
George Orwell as Essayist: The Democratic Socialist Who Never Sought a Safe Space
George Orwell's essays -- so urgently relevant in these times -- convey the political and social views he would later express in his fiction.
‘The American President’ and the Aesthetics of Rising NeoLiberalism
In the prescient The American President, the president and his love interest push the liberal agenda while simultaneously living in the lap of luxury. Talk about having your cake and eating it, too.
‘Monrovia, Indiana’ Merges Impressionistic Humanism with Political Critique
Breaking away from Election 2016 diatribes, Director Frederick Wiseman visually acknowledges Monrovia, Indiana as a tranquil working-class Eden, while still rendering a subtly powerful critique of small town America.