In the graduate department where I once taught freshmen and sophomores the rudiments of college English, it became common practice to include Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus on many an Intro to Lit syllabus, along with a viewing of Julie Taymor’s flamboyant film...
In 1949, George Orwell received a curious letter from his former high school French teacher. Orwell had just published his groundbreaking book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which received glowing reviews from just about every corner of the English-speaking world. His French teacher,...
Lake George Reflection (circa 1921) via Wikimedia Commons What comes to mind when you think of Georgia O’Keeffe? Bleached skulls in the desert? Aerial views of clouds, almost cartoonish in their puffiness? Voluptuous flowers (freighted with an erotic charge the artist...
One of my very first acts as a new New Yorker many years ago was to make the journey across three boroughs to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. My purpose: a pilgrimage to Herman Melville’s grave. I came not to...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjo3l2hFkoQ If you’ve made the journey to Athens, you probably took the time to visit its most popular tourist attraction, the Acropolis. On that monument-rich hill, you more than likely paid special attention to the Parthenon, the ancient temple dedicated...
In an issue of Esprit entitled Consciences de l’écologie, Catherine Larrère looks at how the ecological thought of the social philosopher André Gorz was shaped by two works published in the 1970s: Edward Goldsmith and Robert Allen’s A Blueprint for...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWYxrowovts More than a few of us might be interested in the opportunity to spend a day in Victorian London. But very few of us indeed who’ve ever read, say, a Charles Dickens novel would ever elect to live there....
In Blätter, Seyla Benhabib writes that Israel’s war on Hamas reflects three significant shifts in international relations: first, protectionism, imperialism and expansionism replacing globalisation, particularly in the invasion – or threats of invasion – by Russia, the United States, China...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_4hdA11Z-Q If you wish to become a cinephile worthy of the title, you must first pledge never to refuse to watch a film for any of the following reasons. First, that it is in a different language and subtitled; second,...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlZq8Nit0Vw The practice of cartomancy, or divination with cards, dates back several hundred years to at least 14th century Europe, perhaps by way of Turkey. But the specific form we know of, the tarot, likely emerged in the 17th century,...
