Online Features – Page 10

This Body Still Has Time: Jermaine Singleton’s Cultural Melancholy: Readings of Race, Impossible Mourning, and African American Ritual

Amadi Ozier

As a young child, Frederick Douglass watches his “old master” Captain Anthony strip his Aunt Hester to her waist, tie her arms to a hook, and whip her until blood drips to the kitchen floor—all as punishment for speaking to … Continue reading “This Body Still Has Time: Jermaine Singleton’s Cultural Melancholy: Readings of Race, Impossible Mourning, and African American Ritual“

August 31, 2017 | Features

In Conversation with Ali Bader

Anna McCarthy

The following is an edited transcript of an e-mail interview between Iraqi fiction writer and essayist Ali Bader and Social Text Online editor Anna McCarthy. Bader’s story “The Corporal” appears in Iraq+100: Stories from a Century after the Invasion, a … Continue reading “In Conversation with Ali Bader”

August 16, 2017 | Features: Interviews

A Politics of Dissonance

Toby Lee

“People getting together.” This is a phrase that comes up early and often in Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements (Soberscove, 2017). In the introduction to the book, Daniel Tucker, the curator of the exhibition and … Continue reading “A Politics of Dissonance”

August 8, 2017 | Features: Reviews

Comrade Love and Comrade Spell

Joshua Stanley

Whoever pride in the face I went for a ride with my friend on the shore of our news where all the objects were and there was no waste to love or be an end for politics in the fantasy … Continue reading “Comrade Love and Comrade Spell”

July 24, 2017 | Features: Poetry

British Election Nights, Despair, and Hope: A Personal History

David Hesmondhalgh

British election nights have followed a certain pattern for decades. The polling stations close at 10 p.m. The ballot boxes are delivered to municipal sports halls across the country, where local government employees count the votes through the night, before … Continue reading “British Election Nights, Despair, and Hope: A Personal History”

June 20, 2017 | Features

A New Diagnosis for Capitalism: Tristam Vivian Adams’ The Psychopath Factory

Linnéa Hussein

“What if we’re living in a world full of super-social psychopaths?” is the question posed by Tristam Vivian Adams early on in his book The Psychopath Factory: How Capitalism Organizes Empathy. Scary, as the term “psychopath” immediately triggers thoughts about … Continue reading “A New Diagnosis for Capitalism: Tristam Vivian Adams’ The Psychopath Factory“

June 1, 2017 | Features: Reviews

Popular Culture

Wendy Trevino

1. “No matter how much you feel it, you want To feel it even more.” That’s the feeling Tony Bennett says he sees in Amy Winehouse when they meet to record “Body & Soul” in March 2011 For Bennett’s album … Continue reading “Popular Culture”

May 8, 2017 | Features: Poetry

What Does One Do In the Face of a Lawless Administration?

Michael Denning

Note: Since April 25, 2017, eight graduate teachers who are members of UNITE HERE Local 33 have engaged in The Fast Against the Slow, a fast to move the Yale administration to negotiate. For more details, see https://www.facebook.com/local33unitehere/ The global … Continue reading “What Does One Do In the Face of a Lawless Administration?”

May 4, 2017 | Features

French Elections: The Hour of Danger

Sylvie Mikowski

All journalists and commentators predicted that the first round of the French presidential elections could bring about real surprises; but, in fact, it didn’t. Well, at least not really. Of course, with the qualification of Macron and Le Pen, it … Continue reading “French Elections: The Hour of Danger”

May 3, 2017 | Features

“Original Sin,” Slavery, and American Innocence

John Patrick Leary

“Slavery, America’s original sin” is one of the most common ways in which human bondage is invoked in journalism, punditry, and popular history today. What is suggested by this theological metaphor for a brutal history of exploitation—and where does it … Continue reading ““Original Sin,” Slavery, and American Innocence”

April 3, 2017 | Features

Nonknowledge as Capacity: Randy Martin’s Knowledge LTD and the Limits of Rationality in the Age of the Derivative

John Andrews

Journalist Farhad Manjoo describes the “post-fact society” as “a parallel universe of fact: a place at once part of the mainland but profoundly distant from it, a place where another truth—a truth pocked with holes, but one just true enough … Continue reading “Nonknowledge as Capacity: Randy Martin’s Knowledge LTD and the Limits of Rationality in the Age of the Derivative”

March 20, 2017 | Features: Reviews

A Spillage of the Fugitive Variety

Marquis Bey

Marquis Bey interviews Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of the poetry collection Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity. Read an excerpt from book here. Marquis Bey: So I want to begin, if I may, expressing to you how utterly thankful I … Continue reading “A Spillage of the Fugitive Variety”

March 17, 2017 | Features: Interviews

From Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Duke University Press has allowed us to publish an excerpt from Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ fantastic new book Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity, which can be purchased here. These passages come from a chapter titled “How She Survived Until Then.” … Continue reading “From Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity“

March 17, 2017 | Features: Poetry

Michael Jackson

Jasper Bernes

They were ex-cons and grad students, fractious Bolsheviks and urban castaways, rock-throwers and pot-smokers, juggalos and candy kids. They were people angry at their chances or at someone else’s. They were there because they were trying to make art about … Continue reading “Michael Jackson”

January 26, 2017 | Fiction

Big Man

Lauren Berlant

1. On Genre Flailing In a crisis we engage in genre flailing so that we don’t fall through the cracks of knowledge and noise into suicide or psychosis. In a crisis we improvise like crazy, where “like crazy” is a … Continue reading “Big Man”

January 19, 2017 | Features