Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism has the uncanny quality of illuminating for readers what we believe we already knew. Her renderings of the affective quality of everyday life at the center of a declining US American empire, offered to us … Continue reading “Optimistic Cruelty”
On arriving in Madison some years ago, I went to the huge farmers’ market that winds round the Capitol. Startled by the slow-moving procession of orderly, white shoppers all pacing in the same direction, I dubbed the market throngs “The … Continue reading “Which Way Wisconsin? The Meaning of the Madison Movement”
