Kafkology, Kundera contends, “produces and sustains its own image of Kafka, to the point where the author whom readers know by the name Kafka is no longer Kafka but the Kafkologized Kafka.” libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Loved this essay by Jared Marcel Pollen on Kafka. libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

On publication and its discontents libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

I wrote about losing my countries for @readliberties.bsky.social

I wrote a big essay about Kawabata last year, if you're interested. It doesn't touch much on Gang, though maybe it should have: libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

My latest, “Marbury Now,” is published in the latest issue of Liberties! libertiesjournal.com/articles/mar...

The ratio of words written by Kafka to words written about Kafka is estimated to be about 1:10,000,000. Is anything left to say? by Jared Marcel Pollen libertiesjournal.com/online-artic... Kafka at PG: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/autho... #books #literature

Cosign this libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

A privilege to appear, again, in the pages of @readliberties.bsky.social I reflect on the poetic vocation as a prayerful act of listening / transcribing what lies beyond self, drawing on Miłosz & Merton to describe writers as secretaries to the Unseen: libertiesjournal.com/articles/sec... #poetry

On Art? "The American system of private cultural philanthropy has a lot to answer for, but at least it provides some cushion from POTUS 47’s whims." libertiesjournal.com/articles/gri...

" In May 1942 in Central Park, forty-six thousand men and women became new American citizens and made this country their home. And the country welcomed them." libertiesjournal.com/articles/i-a...

“This is Pascal’s gift: the ability to distill what is vast into a sentence, and make the infinite startlingly present. To read him is to encounter a mind that recognized truth had to be lived, suffered, loved.” libertiesjournal.com/articles/sew...

New piece for Liberties Journal about the incommensurable value of independent journalism. libertiesjournal.com/online-artic....

"Art matters only because someone looks. The more renowned the art, the greater the number of clueless lookers, joyless collectors, donors in search of tax breaks, and steroidal museums." libertiesjournal.com/articles/gri...

NYFF: Festival of Darkness by @robrubsam.bsky.social

For years it's driven me crazy to see so many people misunderstand and misuse the term "neoliberalism" -- and then, based on their misunderstandings, to engage in bad history and policy analysis. Herewith, an attempt at a corrective. libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

The good people at @readliberties.bsky.social let me write up the highlights and misfires of this year's NYFF: libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Two Crooked Streets: A Proposed Genealogy of Noir Poetry by @bdralyuk.bsky.social

Evelyn Waugh’s Decadent Redemption: Brideshead Revisited #literature libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic... #booksky 💙📚 #books #literature #reading

Grateful to share my new essay in Liberties Journal, “Sewn Close to Pascal’s Heart.” A meditation on doubt, faith, and the ache of thinking deeply: libertiesjournal.com/articles/sew... Honored to be published alongside writers I’ve long admired. #writing #philosophy #spirituality

My essay, Zion, about being in Shangri-La Tibet on October 7th 2023, is now up at Liberties Journal @readliberties. 
I wrote about my despair and about trying to hold on to hope. Because, really, what do we have but hope? 
 Read the full essay at libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Brief Encounters by Michael Walzer libertiesjournal.com/articles/bri...

Don’t read this for my sake—my future is all used up. Read it for Kenneth Fearing, Alfred Hayes, and Weldon Kees. They’ve still got it. libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Here, have 6000 words on Yasunari Kawabata: libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

If only someone had made a great film about the innate bottomless nihilism of online life, where the ravenous search for depraved stimulation hollows you out, and erases everything human in you...if only... libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Join Morten Høi Jensen and @celestemarcus.bsky.social on Zoom, Tuesday, September 30th at 12 PMEST/6PM CST to discuss Celeste's essay from the recent issue "The Other Obliteration: A Report from the West Bank"

We're hiring! For the full listing: libertiesjournal.com/assistant-pu...

'The people of Gaza have never been in greater need of international intervention. They need help— not only from Israel, from Hamas too. Recognizing a Palestinian State is not a reward for violence; it is the conclusion of a sincere dedication to statecraft.' libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

“One of the things that distinguishes totalitarianism from other kinds of state tyranny is the way in which it invades every nook and cranny of human existence…[it] makes apolitical life impossible, thereby rendering impossible any apolitical treatment of art.” libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

From Ihab Hassan's recent essay for @readliberties.bsky.social

"It is possible for bleeding worlds to be buried and forgotten. It is possible for hope and political prudence to fuse and forge a future worth living for, a future of hope, a future where children expect the sun to rise and set without the sounds of sirens or the sight of bludgeoned corpses."

Thought this piece on the aesthetics of our current era of fascist propaganda, and how it differs meaningfully from Abu Ghraib, was good libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Interesting look at the meaning of authenticity in Sinners and A Complete Unknown that calls out something important that tripped me up about the ending of the former: when Stack declares the acoustic blues "real," he, not the film, is the one missing the point libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Jared Marcel Pollen (not on here, I don't think) also recently wrote an excellent piece on Weiss for @readliberties.bsky.social libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

“Benton’s preoccupations with American style seem so foreign because they have so little relevance to our own time. Establishing something that was an “American art” proved to be an obsession for artists of the first four decades of the 20th century” libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

"By the mid-1930s, Benton may well have been the most famous artist in America and perhaps the best paid. However, Benton was to live another 38 years, and during that time much of the certainties of his world evaporated and his reputation went with them." libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Polanski's screenings at @filmforumnyc.bsky.social are packed and lines to get tickets stretch around the corner. Why? libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...