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...

“…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!

LOVE this film! High time to discover it or watch anew.

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...

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...

"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...

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!

"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...

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!

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...

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 📼

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 📼

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...

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

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!

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!

Catch me promoting the @openletterbooks.bsky.social sale and some of my favorite #WiTMonth reads for @mid-theory.bsky.social!

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!

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

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...

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 ✨

Our second job material workshop will be tomorrow 8/8 @2pm EST. Sign up below docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Today, @mid-theory.bsky.social finished their summer reading group for Alexis Wright’s magisterial novel Praiseworthy. I’m so heartened to have read this alongside smart friends and colleagues! We love big books and we cannot lie!

Where has summer gone?? Well, for MTC a large junk of it was spent in and on Praiseworthy. Our final meeting on the book will take place tomorrow afternoon, August 6 @5pm ET on Zoom. Sign up below! docs.google.com/forms/u/2/d/...

Where has summer gone?? Well, for MTC a large junk of it was spent in and on Praiseworthy. Our final meeting on the book will take place tomorrow afternoon, August 6 @5pm ET on Zoom. Sign up below! docs.google.com/forms/u/2/d/...

I submitted my book Domestic Denial: Terror, Race, and Home in Literature After 9/11 for peer review today! It's under contract with @uminnpress.bsky.social. I'm super stoked that this whole process is chugging along!

This is good! I'm really interested in [perceived] "misalignments" between genre and content, especially around reps of disability in genre texts. I approach this by "defining" genres in terms of characteristic affects, but I like @mjkeran.bsky.social's approach too.

One thing about me is that I will never shut up about genre

Molly Keran on Colleen Hoover, Jennifer Crusie, contemporary romance, and what happens when genres get adventures. mid-theory.com/2025/07/29/g...

For MTC, Daniel Fraser thinks about boredom's potential both narratologically and politically. "Boredom is a universal motor and product of social being in capitalism, yet its formal make-up contains a (negatively felt) kernel of the future." mid-theory.com/2025/07/24/s...

The first one went so well that MTC will be running two more of these workshops over the summer. Sign up here: mid-theory.com/mtc-writing-...

My piece on the dynamics of contemporary boredom for the excellent @mid-theory.bsky.social:

this essay is one of my absolute favorites we published this summer’ come for the white lotus recap, stay for the walter benjamin reference, leave with historical materialist defense of staying in board and feeling time. after all. “boredom returns as communal rhythm” mid-theory.com/2025/07/24/s...

For MTC, Daniel Fraser thinks about boredom's potential both narratologically and politically. "Boredom is a universal motor and product of social being in capitalism, yet its formal make-up contains a (negatively felt) kernel of the future." mid-theory.com/2025/07/24/s...

Emily Lynell Edwards reads the proliferation of Romantasy in contemporary literature. "Romantasy does not bother with political economy any more than it bothers with indoor plumbing." mid-theory.com/2025/07/18/m...

My latest banger!! How does Romantasy play into fascist aesthetics? Is the single bed at the inn related to an under discussed feudal economy? Can shadow daddies be woke?? Stay tuned 👇👇👇

Emily Lynell Edwards reads the proliferation of Romantasy in contemporary literature. "Romantasy does not bother with political economy any more than it bothers with indoor plumbing." mid-theory.com/2025/07/18/m...

Our second meeting on Praiseworthy is this afternoon, July 2, @5pm ET Today we will cover pages 150-337, “The Censer” and “Moth Opera.” You are, of course, welcome to join even if you are not caught up with our reading schedule! Sign up below for zoom link. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I am once again asking you to read Mark's book. I meant it!

For MTC, Sean Donovan (@theseanmdonovan.bsky.social) revisits Theda Hammel's pandemic indie STRESS POSITIONS and the leftovers of rainbow liberalism. mid-theory.com/2025/06/24/s...

Deadline extended! TEACHING 21st CENTURY LITERATURE calls for short essays of avid, teching-oriented criticism. CFP: call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/04/...

For MTC, Sean Donovan (@theseanmdonovan.bsky.social) revisits Theda Hammel's pandemic indie STRESS POSITIONS and the leftovers of rainbow liberalism. mid-theory.com/2025/06/24/s...

We are so delighted to introduce our first cohort of contributing writers—critics and thinkers who exemplify the spirit of what we want MTC to be. We are grateful for their work and thrilled to have them on board as we continue to grow and evolve!

My article on commutes and film is one of my favorite things I wrote last year and I'm so grateful to the Mid Theory team (esp @bakaari.bsky.social) for creating this space and for including me in this incredibly cool cohort.

I remember having a conversation with @mattseybold.bsky.social less than a year ago about how some of the great accessible academic writing venues of the last decade had lost a bit of their pop and sparkle, and then shortly after that these guys drove Mid Theory onto the scene at 100 miles an hour.

We are so delighted to introduce our first cohort of contributing writers—critics and thinkers who exemplify the spirit of what we want MTC to be. We are grateful for their work and thrilled to have them on board as we continue to grow and evolve!

The first meeting of Praiseworthy Reading Group will take place TODAY @5pm. Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I wrote about mid-20th century speed reading and its surprising interest in novel reading. Come for descriptions of how to move your hand down the page to increase your eye span, stay for an argument about speed reading, like close reading, as a defense of human reading in an age of reading machines

Start your weekend with MTC Summer reads and join us for any and all! More information on our website mid-theory.com/reading/

sometimes the hardest part is getting started! tell your friends, your students ✨