Faith Hahn

At a time when cultural homogenisation is on the rise, where generative AI is increasingly putting innovative creativity in competition with mass derivation, we risk a future where music diversity is also being actively commercially suppressed. The introduction of thresholds, especially where they de-monetise repertoire , but also where they apply... See more

Esarhaddon selected Ashurbanipal as heir c. 673. The selection of Ashurbanipal bypassed the elder son Shamash-shum-ukin. Perhaps in order to avoid future rivalry, Esarhaddon designated Shamash-shum-ukin as the heir to Babylonia. The two brothers jointly acceded to their respective thrones after Esarhaddon's death in 669, though Shamash-shum-ukin... See more

She explains that a young man had once fallen passionately in love with the statue and managed to get locked in with her all night; and that the little stain is the only surviving trace of his lust. The heterosexual and the homosexual both gleefully claim that this proves their point (the one observing that even a woman in stone could arouse... See more

The writing is getting better. The ideas are getting worse. There’s a new genre of essay that other academics reading this will instantly recognize, a clumsy collaboration between students and Silicon Valley. I call it glittering sludge .

In this mirror one can see the terrifying nature of force, of this ancient human drive to turn others into things, which will never disappear, no matter how many smart professors comfortably say otherwise over coffee tables. Simone Weil knew we desperately need a clear mirror to deal with the horror of force in its most ghastly expression, which is... See more

In some ways, book reviewers, critics, book club hosts, readers, and even the writers themselves, are engaged in a long war against the idea of fiction itself, involving the reverse-engineering and geolocation of various hurts and harms in the psychology of the writer. We are, at least in America, a nation trained in the arts of literary analysis,... See more

We can’t address the decline in empathy without addressing the decline in attention . Empathy requires a degree of sustained focus:

• Paying attention to an experience someone is sharing


• Recalling experiencing a similar emotional response


• Sitting with your own and the other person’s inner state

When we are fragmented and distracted , we simply can’t... 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... See more

And “indie,” in the current day, doesn’t necessarily mean “small”: the big-tent Beggars Group (4AD, Matador, Rough Trade, XL, and Young Turks) is inarguably a major business. North Carolina’s Merge Records has had multiple Billboard top tens, and is distributed by a NASDAQ-listed public company that counts among other clients Walmart, Target,... See more