Mid Theory Collective
@mid-theory.bsky.social
📤 785
📥 109
📝 140
the contemporary and its curiosities
https://mid-theory.com
pinned post!
MTC is running two reading groups this fall. The first starts later this month. We will be reading HEART LAMP, a collection of short stories in translation and the first meeting is September 18. Get your books now and join us!! Sign up below:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
"the universal defilement of political speech saddles every utterance with such a burden of filth that, crushed and starting from within a dystopia that has already occurred, political speech can briefly, vanishingly, in the fragile space of an instant, attain the condition that literature cannot."
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Mamdani Feelings
Starting from a place of extreme negativity, political speech can brush the bright membrane that forms literature’s impossible horizon. The rent is too high in Los Angeles. Consider a number: “One …
https://mid-theory.com/2025/11/04/mamdani-feelings/
12 days ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Johanna Winant
8 days ago
a gift from
@bakaari.bsky.social
(some of the other ones she brought were her brilliance and her humor)
@mid-theory.bsky.social
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Mid Theory Collective
Matt Seybold
10 days ago
We are underway.
@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social
delivers opening remarks at a packed “Close Reading For The 21st Centure” book launch symposium.
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"the universal defilement of political speech saddles every utterance with such a burden of filth that, crushed and starting from within a dystopia that has already occurred, political speech can briefly, vanishingly, in the fragile space of an instant, attain the condition that literature cannot."
loading . . .
Mamdani Feelings
Starting from a place of extreme negativity, political speech can brush the bright membrane that forms literature’s impossible horizon. The rent is too high in Los Angeles. Consider a number: “One …
https://mid-theory.com/2025/11/04/mamdani-feelings/
12 days ago
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reposted by
Mid Theory Collective
On the day of the NYC mayoral election, Ali Raz pens a gorgeous essay reflecting on how Mamdani's rhetoric evinces a poetics of the Universal and convokes a shared commons united by labor and by the rhythms of life spent working in cities most of us cannot afford.
mid-theory.com/2025/11/04/m...
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Mamdani Feelings
Starting from a place of extreme negativity, political speech can brush the bright membrane that forms literature’s impossible horizon. The rent is too high in Los Angeles. Consider a number: “One …
https://mid-theory.com/2025/11/04/mamdani-feelings/
13 days ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Felicity Callard
13 days ago
This is a beautiful essay
add a skeleton here at some point
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Mid Theory Collective
Ali Raz
13 days ago
A piece about having Big Feelings about Mamdani.
@mid-theory.bsky.social
was a dream to work with 💖 Now glueing myself to election coverage. 🍺📺
add a skeleton here at some point
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On the day of the NYC mayoral election, Ali Raz pens a gorgeous essay reflecting on how Mamdani's rhetoric evinces a poetics of the Universal and convokes a shared commons united by labor and by the rhythms of life spent working in cities most of us cannot afford.
mid-theory.com/2025/11/04/m...
loading . . .
Mamdani Feelings
Starting from a place of extreme negativity, political speech can brush the bright membrane that forms literature’s impossible horizon. The rent is too high in Los Angeles. Consider a number: “One …
https://mid-theory.com/2025/11/04/mamdani-feelings/
13 days ago
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reposted by
Mid Theory Collective
In our inaugural 'For Your Consideration' column Amanda Ann Klein and Olivia Stowell discuss Aaron Schimberg’s 2024 film A DIFFERENT MAN, a psychological drama about an actor with facial differences who undergoes an experimental treatment to alter his appearance.
mid-theory.com/2025/10/22/f...
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For Your Consideration: ‘A Different Man’
In our “For Your Consideration” column, MTC editors, writers, and readers point your attention to works of art and cultural texts that may have dropped out of the 36-hour discourse cycle, but we co…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/22/for-your-consideration-a-different-man/
26 days ago
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Working with Adam was an absolute dream! He was as usual responsive, attentive, brilliant. We cannot wait to work with him again ✨🎉
add a skeleton here at some point
17 days ago
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Our final meeting on NEVADA will be TODAY 10/30 at 5:30pm ET. We look forward to seeing returning and new faces! Sign up here:
tinyurl.com/4yj7xj8p
add a skeleton here at some point
18 days ago
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Our final meeting on NEVADA will be tomorrow 10/30 at 5:30pm ET. We look forward to seeing returning and new faces! Sign up here:
tinyurl.com/4yj7xj8p
add a skeleton here at some point
19 days ago
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As you gear up for the spooky season, may we interest you in the unplayable and the haunt of the VHS tape
mid-theory.com/2025/09/04/c...
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Conjuring the Unplayable
But why does anyone film anything? To remember it and, in the case of home viewing, to watch it repeatedly, allowing the images to spread across time like a curse. The same week I began writing thi…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/04/conjuring-the-unplayable/
20 days ago
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Mid Theory Collective
For MTC, TJ Calhoun reviews Danzy Senna’s 'Colored Television.' Of the novel's protagonist they write, "She is the daughter of a theory-minded generation, where race is both too fluid and too real, and where no one actually wants to be understood, only verified."
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The Prison-House of Authenticity: A Review of ‘Colored Television’
Here, the tragic mulatto is circumstantial: the novel makes it clear that, given the right motivations, anyone is capable of desiring badly, especially when custom furniture is on the line. In the …
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/27/the-prison-house-of-authenticity-a-review-of-colored-television/
21 days ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Jay Shelat
21 days ago
Would anyone want to write a review of Lily Allen’s new album for
@mid-theory.bsky.social
?? It’s so so so good and begs for some great criticism!
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For MTC, TJ Calhoun reviews Danzy Senna’s 'Colored Television.' Of the novel's protagonist they write, "She is the daughter of a theory-minded generation, where race is both too fluid and too real, and where no one actually wants to be understood, only verified."
loading . . .
The Prison-House of Authenticity: A Review of ‘Colored Television’
Here, the tragic mulatto is circumstantial: the novel makes it clear that, given the right motivations, anyone is capable of desiring badly, especially when custom furniture is on the line. In the …
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/27/the-prison-house-of-authenticity-a-review-of-colored-television/
21 days ago
1
3
1
In our inaugural 'For Your Consideration' column Amanda Ann Klein and Olivia Stowell discuss Aaron Schimberg’s 2024 film A DIFFERENT MAN, a psychological drama about an actor with facial differences who undergoes an experimental treatment to alter his appearance.
mid-theory.com/2025/10/22/f...
loading . . .
For Your Consideration: ‘A Different Man’
In our “For Your Consideration” column, MTC editors, writers, and readers point your attention to works of art and cultural texts that may have dropped out of the 36-hour discourse cycle, but we co…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/22/for-your-consideration-a-different-man/
26 days ago
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Mid Theory Collective
For MTC, Sophia Richardson examines how Netflix's SIRENS draws on competing visions of the ancient myth.
mid-theory.com/2025/10/16/w...
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Whose Sirens?
How does this supportive sororal network gradually embraced by the show’s women turn into the nest of monsters perceived by its men? The most immediate and obvious reference to “sirens” in Netflix’…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/16/whose-sirens/
about 1 month ago
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For MTC, Sophia Richardson examines how Netflix's SIRENS draws on competing visions of the ancient myth.
mid-theory.com/2025/10/16/w...
loading . . .
Whose Sirens?
How does this supportive sororal network gradually embraced by the show’s women turn into the nest of monsters perceived by its men? The most immediate and obvious reference to “sirens” in Netflix’…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/16/whose-sirens/
about 1 month ago
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TODAY, 10/16 our first meeting on NEVADA takes place. Sign up here for the zoom link:
tinyurl.com/4yj7xj8p
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Tomorrow 10/15 @ 5:30 ET our reading group Imogen Binnie's NEVADA begins. Sign up below and join us on discussing and celebrating this blazing genre-defying novel:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Farah Bakaari
about 1 month ago
Catch the ever insightful
@marissafenley.bsky.social
take stock of contemporary Chicago theatre scene and what it might take to overthrow realism’s tyranny
mid-theory.com/2025/10/09/o...
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On the Scene: The Utopian Theater Asylum
“It’s not just that Chicago has an overwhelming preference for realism, but that even within non-realist plays, the characters are made out to be as real as possible.” The Chicago store…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/09/on-the-scene-the-utopian-theater-asylum/
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For MTC, Marissa Fenley takes the pulse of current Chicago theatre scene, its hunkering for realism, and recent experimental dramaturgies that offer something else.
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On the Scene: The Utopian Theater Asylum
“It’s not just that Chicago has an overwhelming preference for realism, but that even within non-realist plays, the characters are made out to be as real as possible.” The Chicago store…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/09/on-the-scene-the-utopian-theater-asylum/
about 1 month ago
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Final heart lamp meeting today at 5pm ET. Sign up at
mid-theory.com/reading/
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Jay Shelat
about 1 month ago
You could be reading Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq for
@mid-theory.bsky.social
’s book club! We’re meeting THIS THURSDAY to chat about the book. You don’t have to read the whole thing to attend the meeting! Sign up here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
add a skeleton here at some point
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Mid Theory Collective
Jay Shelat
about 1 month ago
If you’re interested in writing and/or reading public scholarship, check out
@mid-theory.bsky.social
!
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Our reading group on NEVADA starts in about two weeks! Get your copy of this brilliant, funny, trailblazing trans novel and join us on October 16th @ 5:30 ET. Sign up here:
tinyurl.com/4yj7xj8p
about 1 month ago
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For MTC, Ruari Paterson-Achenbach revisits this peculiar cultural artifact and what its "recession-fueled dreams of gluttony" can teach us about present day meat-oriented masculinity.
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What Was Epic Meal Time?
There is nothing new being made here. Just the lingering dreams of 90s and 2000s free-wheeling optimism now rotting from the inside. As it stands, I have only managed to create one film list on my …
https://mid-theory.com/2025/10/02/what-was-epic-meal-time/
about 2 months ago
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MTC has partnered with Chicago Review for a pitch workshop on October 9 @ 6pm ET. Want to try your hands in public writing, not sure how to approach editors, how to pitch your idea? Join us for a discussion of our respective processes as well as general conversations about best practices.
about 2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
For the first installment of our "Hold Up" feature, Sophia Marie Niang revisits Jean Vigo’s 1933 film ZERO FOR CONDUCT and what teaches us about the rebellious lives of children and the possibilities of forging comradely solidarity with them.
mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/h...
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Hold Up: The Queer Revolutionary Children of Zero for Conduct
So much of being disciplined into adulthood is a curtailing of the imagination. In February this year, I watched around thirty kids movies: movies about children, a few movies made for children, an…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/hold-up-the-queer-revolutionary-children-of-zero-for-conduct/
about 2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Farah Bakaari
about 2 months ago
“…children’s liberation from adult domination remains as urgent today as it was in 1933. Children continue to be harmed in all the institutions…meant to ‘protect’ them.” i felt so many unnameable emotions reading this piece for my own boarding school self, for all kids enduring tyranny everywhere!
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Hold Up: The Queer Revolutionary Children of ‘Zero for Conduct’
So much of being disciplined into adulthood is a curtailing of the imagination. In February this year, I watched around thirty kids movies: movies about children, a few movies made for children, an…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/hold-up-the-queer-revolutionary-children-of-zero-for-conduct/
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Mid Theory Collective
Colleen Kennedy-Karpat
about 2 months ago
LOVE this film! High time to discover it or watch anew.
add a skeleton here at some point
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For the first installment of our "Hold Up" feature, Sophia Marie Niang revisits Jean Vigo’s 1933 film ZERO FOR CONDUCT and what teaches us about the rebellious lives of children and the possibilities of forging comradely solidarity with them.
mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/h...
loading . . .
Hold Up: The Queer Revolutionary Children of Zero for Conduct
So much of being disciplined into adulthood is a curtailing of the imagination. In February this year, I watched around thirty kids movies: movies about children, a few movies made for children, an…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/hold-up-the-queer-revolutionary-children-of-zero-for-conduct/
about 2 months ago
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MTC first reading group on the award-winning translated stories HEART LAMP by Banu Mushtaq will take place tomorrow Sept. 18 at 5pm ET. Sign up here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
"But what about works that demand more than a 'relaxed distribution of focus,' work that we want to give more of ourselves to?" Nat Hansen (
@nathansen.bsky.social
) reviews two recent books on art amidst our crisis of attention
mid-theory.com/2025/09/11/d...
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Disordered Attention
Two recent books offer practical recommendations for how we should attend to art amidst the crisis of attention. After Y2K, when the world failed to end, the art historian T.J. Clark spent six mont…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/11/disordered-attention/
2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Nat Hansen
2 months ago
I wrote about two recent books that offer advice on how to pay attention to art in the midst of *gestures broadly at everything* Thanks to the awesome editors at the
@mid-theory.bsky.social
for their interest in this piece, they’re great to work with!
add a skeleton here at some point
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"But what about works that demand more than a 'relaxed distribution of focus,' work that we want to give more of ourselves to?" Nat Hansen (
@nathansen.bsky.social
) reviews two recent books on art amidst our crisis of attention
mid-theory.com/2025/09/11/d...
loading . . .
Disordered Attention
Two recent books offer practical recommendations for how we should attend to art amidst the crisis of attention. After Y2K, when the world failed to end, the art historian T.J. Clark spent six mont…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/11/disordered-attention/
2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Jay Shelat
2 months ago
Oh hey! Mid Theory Collective kicks off its Fall reading group on Thursday, Sept 18! We’re reading the first half of HEART LAMP by Banu Mushtaq! Come join—even if you didn’t read!
add a skeleton here at some point
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MTC is running two reading groups this fall. The first starts later this month. We will be reading HEART LAMP, a collection of short stories in translation and the first meeting is September 18. Get your books now and join us!! Sign up below:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
2 months ago
0
6
2
reposted by
Mid Theory Collective
You know it's there, but you can't play it! For MTC, Emily Naser-Hall revisits the VHS tape and its haunting resurgence in the present. A perfect, perfectly haunted piece of cultural criticism to start off your spooky season 📼
loading . . .
Conjuring the Unplayable
But why does anyone film anything? To remember it and, in the case of home viewing, to watch it repeatedly, allowing the images to spread across time like a curse. The same week I began writing thi…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/04/conjuring-the-unplayable/
2 months ago
0
5
2
You know it's there, but you can't play it! For MTC, Emily Naser-Hall revisits the VHS tape and its haunting resurgence in the present. A perfect, perfectly haunted piece of cultural criticism to start off your spooky season 📼
loading . . .
Conjuring the Unplayable
But why does anyone film anything? To remember it and, in the case of home viewing, to watch it repeatedly, allowing the images to spread across time like a curse. The same week I began writing thi…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/09/04/conjuring-the-unplayable/
2 months ago
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Congratulations to Omar Khalifa and translator Barbara Romain. You can read Khalifa's interview with our contributing writer Omid Bagherli over at MTC!
mid-theory.com/2025/03/06/o...
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
For MTC, Nikhil Pandhi reviews A. Revathi's recent memoir REVATHI: A LIFE IN TRANS ACTIVISM, translated from Tamil by Nandini Murali. A remarkable book about the power of trans-labor and poetics in the world. Happy Women in Translation Month.
@tiltedaxispress.bsky.social
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Tender Excess: A Review of ‘Revathi: A Life in Trans Activism’
From childhood to adulthood Revathi’s radical desires remain anchored in the hard to parse and interwoven vagaries of trans living and dying in the global South. In a fascinating story shared early…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/08/28/tender-excess-a-review-of-revathi-a-life-in-trans-activism/
3 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
August is Women in Translation Month! To celebrate we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their recommendations. We hope you would check out a few of these and celebrate women in translation!
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Mixtape #7: Happy Women in Translation Month (2025)
August is Women in Translation Month! So for Mixtape #7, we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/08/29/mixtape-7-happy-women-in-translation-month-2025/
3 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Farah Bakaari
3 months ago
this is the kinda rec list i dream of!! instead of reading the same 3 meh books on every mainstream list, why not do yourself a favor and read some interesting, fresh, weird, possibly out of print works in translation…and celebrate women in translation all year round!
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Mid Theory Collective
Kasia
3 months ago
Catch me promoting the
@openletterbooks.bsky.social
sale and some of my favorite
#WiTMonth
reads for
@mid-theory.bsky.social
!
add a skeleton here at some point
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August is Women in Translation Month! To celebrate we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their recommendations. We hope you would check out a few of these and celebrate women in translation!
loading . . .
Mixtape #7: Happy Women in Translation Month (2025)
August is Women in Translation Month! So for Mixtape #7, we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/08/29/mixtape-7-happy-women-in-translation-month-2025/
3 months ago
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For MTC, Nikhil Pandhi reviews A. Revathi's recent memoir REVATHI: A LIFE IN TRANS ACTIVISM, translated from Tamil by Nandini Murali. A remarkable book about the power of trans-labor and poetics in the world. Happy Women in Translation Month.
@tiltedaxispress.bsky.social
loading . . .
Tender Excess: A Review of ‘Revathi: A Life in Trans Activism’
From childhood to adulthood Revathi’s radical desires remain anchored in the hard to parse and interwoven vagaries of trans living and dying in the global South. In a fascinating story shared early…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/08/28/tender-excess-a-review-of-revathi-a-life-in-trans-activism/
3 months ago
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In case you missed it,
@maz-do.bsky.social
surveys “Cambridge’s most openly horny public space” for MTC: the new romance bookstore on Harvard Square.
mid-theory.com/2025/08/17/l...
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Live, Laugh, Lovestruck Books
On the Scene is a recurring reportage on a practice-focused cultural or artistic event taking place now or coming up soon. Framed by an awning of technicolor bougainvillea that blooms in defia…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/08/17/live-laugh-lovestruck-books/
3 months ago
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reposted by
Mid Theory Collective
Farah Bakaari
3 months ago
the sharp, ever witty
@maz-do.bsky.social
writes about her visit to “cambridge’s most openly horny public space”: the new romance bookstore on harvard square ✨
loading . . .
Live, Laugh, Lovestruck Books
On the Scene is a recurring reportage on a practice-focused cultural or artistic event taking place now or coming up soon. Framed by an awning of technicolor bougainvillea that blooms in defia…
https://mid-theory.com/2025/08/17/live-laugh-lovestruck-books/
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