Election Day in Budapest

Next month in Prague!

TOC, non-proof version

Ah, the exhilaration of book proofs in the inbox! _Keeping Contact: Jewish Cultural Initiatives Across Cold War Borders_ is coming to fruition, opening new doors to our understanding of the post-World War Two Jewish World. With @labendz.bsky.social www.amazon.com/Keeping-Cont...

Highly readable review of what promises to be one of the most "urgent" books of the year.

How did writers and artists working under authoritarianism respond to a widespread sense of political failure in the decades after 1968? Join us for a lecture by Brian K. Goodman @briankgoodman.bsky.social on "the antipolitical imagination". ⏰4 March 2026, 12:30 pm tinyurl.com/2rkvcr4m

Mark your calendars: on May 12, @quinnslobodian.com and I go deep on yuppies at @harvardbookstore.bsky.social www.harvard.com/event/dylan-...

Excerpt from Banning Books in America: Not a How-To (pub date today!) by @lydiamillet.bsky.social in @literaryhub.bsky.social lithub.com/what-happens...

Our little book on a big issue is out, with thought-provoking essays from @annieabrams.bsky.social, @lydiamillet.bsky.social, @briankgoodman.bsky.social, @electrostani.bsky.social, @jeremycyoung.bsky.social, @edrabinski.bsky.social, and more who are not on here--hoping people find it useful

boldog születésnapot nekem!

I can’t help myself! (Also, not quite what I argue, but I’m sure the reviewer couldn’t help themselves either.)

“Rubber bullets and book bans are weapons deployed against all of us.” Alumnus @samcohen.bsky.social confronts the censorship surge in “Banning Books in America: Not a How-To,” which includes a syllabus from his university course on banned books

Next month, I'm giving a lecture on "The Antipolitical Imagination" at the Institute for Advanced Study at CEU (@iasceu.bsky.social). If you're in Budapest, join us! events.ceu.edu/2026-03-04/a...

first day in my dream archive @archivum.org

Végre itt az ideje az írásnak.

Campaigns to disrupt progressive social movements. Government agencies violating the constitution. Unaccountable actions in Latin America. The Church Committee warned us fifty years ago. Our publication day is today. bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Eine Rezension!

Discount! Book event! Not clips of the president yelling at us!

"Changes to centers and institutes were initially projected to save $4.8 million." Bill Belichick's annual salary is $10 million.

What a time to decide to learn less about the world. dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

Kirkus Reviews reviews, quirkily www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

Also, I just discovered this thoughtful review from Peter Bugge in the flagship Czech-language journal ČESKÁ LITERATURA 😅 asjournals.lib.cas.cz/ceskaliterat...

www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067... Give the gift of Czech & American literary dissent this holiday season. There's sex, sausage, smuggled poetry! And that's just the Ginsberg chapter... (Use code HOL25 on the @harvardpress.bsky.social site for a steep discount.)

We move to Budapest in exactly one month... 😬

Balint on Zipperstein's new bio of Roth: "Roth curated Penguin’s 'Writers From the Other Europe,' smuggling masters from behind the Iron Curtain into American sight: Tadeusz Borowski, Danilo Kiš, Milan Kundera and, crucially, Bruno Schulz." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

🇭🇺 On this day in 1956, Hungarians rose up against Soviet occupation — and showed solidarity with the 🇵🇱 Polish (“lengyel”) nation, whose June 1956 Poznań protests had been crushed. 🎥 Footage: Blinken OSA Archivum, post-colorized by Colorful History (Színes Történelem) YouTube channel

Keep an eye out for this one from Hadji Bakara and @uchicagopress.bsky.social. It’s brilliant and necessary.💡 press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo....

When I was researching my book in Prague, Ivan Klíma and his wife Helena invited me into their home and talked to me for hours over zázvorová limonáda. Their hospitality was just one reason their apartment was a first stop for visiting US writers like Philip Roth. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/w...

This was a great excuse to finally read Riley’s book on Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe, and man is it a useful corrective on civil society, democracy, and authoritarianism (even if I don’t agree with all of it so far)

New online: John Ganz (@lioneltrolling.bsky.social) interviews Dylan J. Riley on Trump and the state of American democracy. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

“Antipolitics is the ethos of civil society, and civil society is the antithesis of military society.” -György Konrád

Come hang out at @redemmas.org on Wednesday October 1st!

Kino Lucerna, Dec. 21, 2013

Incredible. Would be so interested to see a deep dive on the period, roughly, between ‘68 and ‘89.

This review made me very curious about what these authors would make of a different liberal socialist tradition from the 20th century: attempts to liberalize state socialism from inside the Eastern bloc (Prague Spring, etc.).

Thanks for this, @platanoclassics.bsky.social! www.thenation.com/article/soci...

New at PB: In conversation with @carolyndever.bsky.social, @devoney.bsky.social talks about her new book “Wild for Austen,” covering everything from sexuality, erotica, and love to class, moms, dads, and the power of naughtiness. www.publicbooks.org/weird-but-fa...

“68 Publishers ‘was far and away the most important of the émigré publishing houses,’ said Derek Sayer. ‘It basically kept Czech literature alive.’ And, Mr. Sayer recalled, Mr. Škvorecký ‘was very insistent’ that ‘[Zdena Salivarová] was the one who kept it going.’” Unpaywalled: archive.ph/7JJjL

👇

THE NONCONFORMISTS made the Allen Ginsberg Project's weekly round-up: allenginsberg.org/2025/08/f-a-...

There were no apocalyptic haboobs in Bulgaria this summer. Highly recommend applying to this institute co-sponsored by @acls1919.bsky.social and the Centre for Advanced Study Sofia. www.acls.org/news/acls-co...

Love raising resilient kids in Phoenix in 2025.

We need to offer counter-narratives to the reductions to humanities that many institutions are undertaking, and equip our colleagues across institutions with evidence that the myths being deployed to reduce our fields are not based in fact. futurelostarchive.beehiiv.com/p/the-myth-o...

Promo vid. Links to other vids in fundraiser page. youtube.com/shorts/Npmj3...

Pre-order! www.amazon.com/Banning-Book...

An incredible opportunity to think alongside other scholars about an important topic at the Institute for Advanced Study, CEU in Budapest. The next theme will be "Modalities of Resilience and Resistance: Academia and Society in Illiberal Times." ias.ceu.edu/joint-budape...