Cultural Criticism

One thinks of Amit Majmudar, Christian Wiman, ­Tracy K. Smith, Ryan Wilson, and many others. These ­poets are only rarely published in prestigious publications (or, at least, publications with a prestigious legacy), and the group that should be the biggest supporter of these poets—conservatives—has tended to ignore poetry and the arts. When conserv... See more

Yet what they best represent is the current state of art, where artists must skillfully package themselves as products for buyers to consume.

It’s precisely the kind of work that is uncomfortable for most artists, who by definition concern themselves with what it means to be a person in the world, not what it means to be a brand.

It’s tired at this point to say that the weightlessness of postmodern meaning, its confused identifications, ultimately flattens towards fascism. But still, having a viewpoint is perhaps underrated.

There’s also an almost unbearable sense of intimacy between author and reader — Céline famously said “what interests me is a direct message to the nervous system.” His total reliance on ellipses forecloses the cheap little tricks used to construct the artifice of what we are told is “good” writing: the strategic period, the melodramatic line break,... See more

An ideal production of Freitag aus Licht would not be afraid to actively undermine the ideologies that underpin Stockhausen’s aesthetic vision. It would not shy away from denouncing and Evan ridiculing the composer and his nauseating beliefs. It would acknowledge and actively decry the opera’s racism while transforming its message from one of oppre... See more

To be honest, my appetite for this sort of online blowup diminishes hourly. Though I’m as prone to schadenfreude as any other media professional trying to hold onto relevance in an increasingly winner-take-all economy, there’s something about watching extremely online people have noisy meltdowns that makes me feel like I’m inhaling my own body odor... See more

It’s intended as a nuanced, edgy twist on “the discourse”, and a reference to intersectional theory to highlight and preclude the most privileged women’s likelihood to ignore the varying needs of those yet less fortunate. However, especially given its popularity with the pregnancy-causing half of the population, it reads more as an ignorant and unt... See more

One thing I’ve also noticed is the gradual loss of the understanding of “imagination” as a category; it can sound a little Reading Rainbow to talk about, but wouldn’t you know imagination is actually an essential part of the human condition. In so far as the words “spirit” or “spirituality” mean anything beyond woo-woo or cliché they must include t... See more

Whatever initial appeal this argument has, it owes to the unpleasantness of corporate drudgery in general, not to the predicament of female corporate drudges in particular. Invariably, the job that features in articles like Andrews’s is soul-sucking, pointless and therefore presumed to have been chosen solely for the prestige it confers (although s... See more