Mid Theory Collective
@mid-theory.bsky.social
📤 892
📥 143
📝 198
the contemporary and its curiosities
https://mid-theory.com
pinned post!
MTC is running a series of reading & writing groups this spring & summer. Our first reading group on the recent English translation of Punjabi novella Keeru by Fauzia Rafique hosted by Nico Millman & the translator Haider Shabaz will meet on April 15 @ 6pm ET. Sign up here:
tinyurl.com/yfvycxut
3 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Nicole Rizzuto
about 13 hours ago
It exists! Publication day in the UK of ARRESTING ECOLOGIES: GLOBAL LITERATURE ACROSS AIR, LAND, AND SEA, 1926-2014. Available everywhere for preorder with discount code AUFLY30 at Oxford UP WEBSITE; digital edition available now at all libraries with Oxford academic subscriptions.
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It's Thursday, which means a new MTC essay! This week Sarah Hopkinson pens a studied and stunning review of Karen Solie's collection of poems, 'Wellwater.' "...in Wellwater, there is no “Away” for waste, toxins, objects or even memories: what we try to abandon, someone else will have to inherit."
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What Lies Beneath in Karen Solie’s ‘Wellwater’
“The eternal silences of these infinite spaces frightens me.” — Pascal, Pensées, 206. Karen Solie’s latest poetry collection Wellwater begins underground, in the invisible spaces where secrets, pa…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/06/04/what-lies-beneath-in-karen-solies-wellwater/
4 days ago
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Oakland Review of Books
1 day ago
Sunday links to things for which clicking provides access and then allows you to read them:
www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/email/aa04a7...
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Sunday Reading
click links and ascend
https://www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/email/aa04a748-a5af-4e1d-b242-c13b05d4c5f0/
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Contemporaries at Post45
4 days ago
📚New cluster!! Ed. Robert LeBlanc "The Specter of High School English" initiates a conversation across institutional boundaries that discusses literacy, censorship, technology, writing instruction, and so much more! Check it out:
post45.org/sections/con...
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The Specter of High School English – Post45 Post45
Edited by Robert J. LeBlanc and T. Phillip Nichols
https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/high-school-english/
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Adrienne Ghaly
4 days ago
Wonderful review of a performance based on Dürer’s Rhinoceros: “the performance takes up puppetry as a dynamic and … a unique access for us to reimagine the objects with a diverse mode of liveliness, demanding that we rediscover the subjecthood of animals that we have long ignored and suppressed.”
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This is happening THIS AFTERNOON, Friday at 3pm ET. There is still time to sign up. Sign up here to get the zoom link:
mid-theory.com/mtc-writing-...
add a skeleton here at some point
4 days ago
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Farah Bakaari
4 days ago
this is easily one of the best reviews i have read in recent year! “Solie is concerned with what it means to leave an impression upon the world: in the objects we use and then discard, in the fertilizers applied to soils, in the land transformed into a grid, and in the marks we leave on others.”
add a skeleton here at some point
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It's Thursday, which means a new MTC essay! This week Sarah Hopkinson pens a studied and stunning review of Karen Solie's collection of poems, 'Wellwater.' "...in Wellwater, there is no “Away” for waste, toxins, objects or even memories: what we try to abandon, someone else will have to inherit."
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What Lies Beneath in Karen Solie’s ‘Wellwater’
“The eternal silences of these infinite spaces frightens me.” — Pascal, Pensées, 206. Karen Solie’s latest poetry collection Wellwater begins underground, in the invisible spaces where secrets, pa…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/06/04/what-lies-beneath-in-karen-solies-wellwater/
4 days ago
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To kickoff our summer workshop series, MTC will host a workshop on the book proposal process, featuring senior editors at three different university presses. Our meeting will take place on Friday June 5 @ 3pm ET. Sign up below to receive the zoom link.
mid-theory.com/mtc-writing-...
6 days ago
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For MTC, Yiwen Wu reviews 'Rhynoceron,' presented at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival in January 2026. "...dramaturgically structured as two parts: the first half from the perspective of gawking gaze of human collectors and the second half from that of the animal, the rhinoceron."
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‘Rhynoceron’: A History of Mistakes
At the very end of the play, as well as in history, the rhinoceros drowns in the sea on the boat ride to Europe. Tracing the events surrounding the arrival of a one-horned Indian rhinoceros to Rena…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/05/21/rhynoceron-a-history-of-mistakes/
18 days ago
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For MTC, Yiwen Wu reviews 'Rhynoceron,' presented at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival in January 2026. "...dramaturgically structured as two parts: the first half from the perspective of gawking gaze of human collectors and the second half from that of the animal, the rhinoceron."
loading . . .
‘Rhynoceron’: A History of Mistakes
At the very end of the play, as well as in history, the rhinoceros drowns in the sea on the boat ride to Europe. Tracing the events surrounding the arrival of a one-horned Indian rhinoceros to Rena…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/05/21/rhynoceron-a-history-of-mistakes/
18 days ago
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Mid Theory Collective
For this week's essay, Sarah Sgro takes on "ideological sweat," mule runs, and the many ecosystems of Strava. Read it or it didn't happen. "Slop and sweat are not so much poison and its antidote as messy co-pollutants."
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On Sweat-Posting and Strava’s Moral Economy
Sweat isn’t so much an antidote to slop as the condition that always, everywhere, undergirds its production. In the summer of 2022, fighting grad school burnout and making peace with my loomi…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/05/14/on-sweat-posting-and-stravas-moral-economy/
25 days ago
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For this week's essay, Sarah Sgro takes on "ideological sweat," mule runs, and the many ecosystems of Strava. Read it or it didn't happen. "Slop and sweat are not so much poison and its antidote as messy co-pollutants."
loading . . .
On Sweat-Posting and Strava’s Moral Economy
Sweat isn’t so much an antidote to slop as the condition that always, everywhere, undergirds its production. In the summer of 2022, fighting grad school burnout and making peace with my loomi…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/05/14/on-sweat-posting-and-stravas-moral-economy/
25 days ago
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Farah Bakaari
26 days ago
For the Boston Review, I wrote about Somaliland and Israel, the consequences of imagining political freedom as a struggle for national sovereignty, and what growing up in and alongside Somaliland had meant for my political education.
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Sovereignty’s End and Beginning
In Somaliland, the pursuit of statehood has come with a bitter irony.
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/sovereigntys-end-and-beginning/
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You can MTC May Newsletter in the link below. And if you are not a subscriber to our monthly newsletter, then please join us to be in the loop on what we are up to. We promise not to spam!
mid-theory.com?mailpoet_rou...
27 days ago
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"The Pitt, making apparent how morbidity flourishes through and not despite the secular gaze that structures it, refuses to participate in the revolt against mourning. This pessimism is The Pitt’s greatest virtue; it cannot imagine an alternative form of revolt." Evan Goldstein on The Pitt
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The Prayers and Tears of Dr. Robby
“For the ransom of life is costly and can never suffice, that one should live on forever and never see the Pit.” — Psalm 49:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version) Trying to understand the modern …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/05/07/the-prayers-and-tears-of-dr-robby/
about 1 month ago
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Evan Goldstein
about 1 month ago
wrote bout da pitt for
@mid-theory.bsky.social
mid-theory.com/2026/05/07/t...
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The Prayers and Tears of Dr. Robby
“For the ransom of life is costly and can never suffice, that one should live on forever and never see the Pit.” — Psalm 49:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version) Trying to understand the modern age, …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/05/07/the-prayers-and-tears-of-dr-robby/
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For MTC, Evan Goldstein pens this absolutely stunning and studied piece of religion in The Pitt. "Being secular is unbearable, but one cannot be otherwise; religion, in the most positive formation the show can give it, is at best something we remember fondly."
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The Prayers and Tears of Dr. Robby
“For the ransom of life is costly and can never suffice, that one should live on forever and never see the Pit.” — Psalm 49:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version) Trying to understand the modern age, …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/05/07/the-prayers-and-tears-of-dr-robby/
about 1 month ago
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Elizabeth Greeniaus
about 2 months ago
“The Sexual Politics of Pastry” is up now on Mid-Theory!
mid-theory.com/2026/04/17/t...
Thank you to Martha Henzy, Farah Bakaari, & esp to Marissa Fenley, who thought alongside me patiently and enthusiastically. She was an invaluable help. Thanks also to Carolyn Jao for the amazing animations!
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The Sexual Politics of Pastry
In Mary Gordon’s novel Final Payments, the narrator Isabel Moore marks a new phase of her life by having drunk sex with her married boss in a car. Her father dead, her Catholicism withering, Isabel…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/04/17/the-sexual-politics-of-pastry/
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Oakland Review of Books
about 2 months ago
Body language! Marthine Satris interviews the scene sisters who are stoking the fire at Oakland's Sultry Sessions:
www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/body-language/
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Body language
An interview with the scene sisters stoking the fire at Oakland's Sultry Sessions
https://www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/body-language/
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New at MTC: Marcus Prasad returns with a heady and careful reading of Lanthimos’ BUGONIA which prompts us to reflect on just how far we might be willing to reach for meaning and for the chance to explain away the daily tragedy of having our lives stolen by extractive capitalism.
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On Bugonia’s Suicidal Ideologies
Teddy’s conspiratorial thinking therefore exposes, in its excesses, the leaps of faith required of all belief, especially those related to the future. Every one of us believes in something. Whether…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/04/23/on-bugonias-suicidal-ideologies/
about 2 months ago
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"...the performances of horny chefs read as experiments rather than arguments. A woman who does not enjoy spitting (for example) can watch a horny chef spit on things without feeling pinned down against her will by a claim ('Women like to be spat upon') or command ('Learn to like being spat upon')."
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The Sexual Politics of Pastry
In Mary Gordon’s novel Final Payments, the narrator Isabel Moore marks a new phase of her life by having drunk sex with her married boss in a car. Her father dead, her Catholicism withering, Isabel…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/04/17/the-sexual-politics-of-pastry/
about 2 months ago
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Melanie Walsh
about 2 months ago
I wrote about Infinite Jest’s wild 30-year journey online—from feminist YouTube stunts to sexist 4chan posts to Luigi Mangione’s Goodreads. How far down the rabbit hole do DFW bros go? What do the memes reveal about our relationship to literature & the internet?
lareviewofbooks.org/article/infi...
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‘Infinite Jest,’ the Internet, and the Politics of Reading | Los Angeles Review of Books
On the internet reception and collective reading of David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary reissue.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/infinite-jest-david-foster-wallace-4chan-incels-feminism
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Article Illustrations by Carolyn Jao for Mid Theory Collective
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about 2 months ago
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In case you missed it, here is a juicy essay for your weekend read.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 months ago
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"When bodies jiggle, shake, leak, or squirt they supply the evidence of a pleasure received. By transposing these expressions from humans to food, our chefs coax bodies to confess without claiming to have triumphed over a real woman’s self-command." Elizabeth Greeniaus on "horny chef videos."
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The Sexual Politics of Pastry
In Mary Gordon’s novel Final Payments, the narrator Isabel Moore marks a new phase of her life by having drunk sex with her married boss in a car. Her father dead, her Catholicism withering, Isabel…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/04/17/the-sexual-politics-of-pastry/
about 2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Saronik Bosu
about 2 months ago
This essay over the new Wuthering Heights
add a skeleton here at some point
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"When bodies jiggle, shake, leak, or squirt they supply the evidence of a pleasure received. By transposing these expressions from humans to food, our chefs coax bodies to confess without claiming to have triumphed over a real woman’s self-command." Elizabeth Greeniaus on "horny chef videos."
loading . . .
The Sexual Politics of Pastry
In Mary Gordon’s novel Final Payments, the narrator Isabel Moore marks a new phase of her life by having drunk sex with her married boss in a car. Her father dead, her Catholicism withering, Isabel…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/04/17/the-sexual-politics-of-pastry/
about 2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Oakland Review of Books
about 2 months ago
If you're an ORB subscriber, you get this linkdump in your inbox, and you know that is what you want:
www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/email/f8bfdb...
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Sunday Sounds Like Reading
(and rain)
https://www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/email/f8bfdb12-b160-42d5-8f03-9eb7d6b0376b/?ref=oakland-digest-of-books-newsletter
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Oakland Review of Books
about 2 months ago
This week, we published an excerpt on the Oakland sideshow, from Alex Werth's "On Loop: Black Sonic Politics in Oakland," and it's essentially the one thing you need to read to understand the sideshow outside of the envelope of white moral panic:
www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/sideshow-his...
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https://www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/sideshow-history-oakland/a
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We are back from our spring hiatus with a mixtape about spring cleaning! For Mixtape #8, we asked our editors and contributing writers what in culture they’re cleaning out for spring. Here are some of what we’re leaving behind and what we’re making space for this spring.
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Mixtape #8: Spring Cleaning
Spring is here! For Mixtape #8, we asked our editors and contributing writers what in culture they’re cleaning out for spring. Here are some of what we’re leaving behind and what we’re making space…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/04/09/mixtape-8-spring-cleaning/
2 months ago
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We are back from our spring hiatus with a mixtape about spring cleaning! For Mixtape #8, we asked our editors and contributing writers what in culture they’re cleaning out for spring. Here are some of what we’re leaving behind and what we’re making space for this spring.
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Mixtape #8: Spring Cleaning
Spring is here! For Mixtape #8, we asked our editors and contributing writers what in culture they’re cleaning out for spring. Here are some of what we’re leaving behind and what we’re making space…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/04/09/mixtape-8-spring-cleaning/
2 months ago
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In our latest installment of our 'Adaptation Anxiety' series, Emily Coccia scrutinizes the oft-cited charge that a work of adaptation reads like 'fanfiction' as a short-hand for a host of complaints about recent works written and/or directed by women.
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Who’s Afraid of AO3?
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. W…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/26/whos-afraid-of-ao3/
2 months ago
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In our latest installment of our 'Adaptation Anxiety' series, Emily Coccia scrutinizes the oft-cited charge that a work of adaptation reads like 'fanfiction' as a short-hand for a host of complaints about recent works written and/or directed by women.
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Who’s Afraid of AO3?
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. W…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/26/whos-afraid-of-ao3/
2 months ago
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Kasia
3 months ago
Coming this fall! Started as a Twitter (RIP) conversation and now it’s got a most pleasing cover!
add a skeleton here at some point
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In our latest installment of our "Adaptation Anxiety" series, MTC contributing writer Omid Bagherli writes about 'Hamnet' and the Oscar-winning film's unsteady and anxious relationship with O'Farrell's novel, with hands held and misread, and with "capital L Literature."
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Hamnet’s Handholding
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. W…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/20/hamnets-handholding/
3 months ago
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In our latest installment of our "Adaptation Anxiety" series, MTC contributing writer Omid Bagherli writes about 'Hamnet' and the Oscar-winning film's unsteady and anxious relationship with O'Farrell's novel, with hands held and misread, and with "capital L Literature."
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Hamnet’s Handholding
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. W…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/20/hamnets-handholding/
3 months ago
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Happy Oscar Sunday to all those who celebrate. For your consideration, we offer this brilliant analysis of Frankenstein and the abiding anxiety over adapting Shelley's monstrous masterpiece.
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Our Mary Shelley, Ourselves
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. W…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/13/our-mary-shelley-ourselves/
3 months ago
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Happy Oscar Sunday to all those who celebrate. For your consideration, we offer this brilliant analysis of Frankenstein and the abiding anxiety over adapting Shelley's monstrous masterpiece.
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Our Mary Shelley, Ourselves
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. W…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/13/our-mary-shelley-ourselves/
3 months ago
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Ben Railton
3 months ago
Before the Oscars, I’m nominating myself for Best Supporting Scholar with my 267th
#ScholarSunday
thread of great public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & the winner will be … all of us! 🗃️
blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...
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#ScholarSunday Thread 267 (3/15/26) – Black and White and Read All Over
Before tonight’s Oscars, I’d like to nominate myself for Best Supporting Scholar with my 267th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past ...
https://blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunday-thread-267-3-15-26/
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Our "Adaptation Anxiety" series continues with MTC contributing writer Charline Jao discussing the recent adaptation of Frankenstein and our protective, possessive attachments to Mary Shelley. "What is this need to tear Shelley away from her intellectual influences, desires, and complexity?"
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Our Mary Shelley, Ourselves
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. We ask…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/13/our-mary-shelley-ourselves/
3 months ago
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Our "Adaptation Anxiety" series continues with MTC contributing writer Charline Jao discussing the recent adaptation of Frankenstein and our protective, possessive attachments to Mary Shelley. "What is this need to tear Shelley away from her intellectual influences, desires, and complexity?"
loading . . .
Our Mary Shelley, Ourselves
Adaptation is everywhere! In the spring of 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. We ask…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/13/our-mary-shelley-ourselves/
3 months ago
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"Rather than being mediated by parties or trade unions, self-organized movements are led by those on the ground, with an absence of hierarchical leadership structures: the doer decides. In addition, the commune and workers’ councils both necessarily entail the occupation of physical space."
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Commune or Council
Quantum Facility and Environmental Justice Campaign led by Southside Together in Chicago, IL. Photography by Matthew Kaplan. When you think about communism in the US, if you think about it at all, …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/06/commune-or-council/
3 months ago
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MTC contributing writer Matthew Beeber reviews recent books that return Paris Commune of 1871 as way of thinking about contemporary leftist uprisings and the future of revolution.
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Commune or Council
Quantum Facility and Environmental Justice Campaign led by Southside Together in Chicago, IL. Photography by Matthew Kaplan. When you think about communism in the US, if you think about it at all, …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/06/commune-or-council/
3 months ago
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Farah Bakaari
3 months ago
“If we’ve learned anything from revolutionary history, it’s that we won’t know how it will look until it happens.” Brilliant review by Matt on recent works on history of the left.
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Commune or Council
Quantum Facility and Environmental Justice Campaign led by Southside Together in Chicago, IL. Photography by Matthew Kaplan. When you think about communism in the US, if you think about it at all, …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/06/commune-or-council/
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MTC contributing writer Matthew Beeber reviews recent books that return Paris Commune of 1871 as way of thinking about contemporary leftist uprisings and the future of revolution.
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Commune or Council
Quantum Facility and Environmental Justice Campaign led by Southside Together in Chicago, IL. Photography by Matthew Kaplan. When you think about communism in the US, if you think about it at all, …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/06/commune-or-council/
3 months ago
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Maggie Boyd reviews Nina McConigley's debut novel HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER and the author's self-conscious attempt to foil certain novelistic expectations. "The novel resists resolution at every turn, repeatedly identifying a satisfying story arc and then refusing to take the exit."
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Foiled Forms: A Review of Nina McConigley’s ‘How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder’
The novel resists resolution at every turn, repeatedly identifying a satisfying story arc and then refusing to take the exit. How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, the debut novel by Indian-Irish-Am…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/03/02/foiled-forms-a-review-of-nina-mcconigleys-how-to-commit-a-postcolonial-murder/
3 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
MTC is running a series of reading & writing groups this spring & summer. Our first reading group on the recent English translation of Punjabi novella Keeru by Fauzia Rafique hosted by Nico Millman & the translator Haider Shabaz will meet on April 15 @ 6pm ET. Sign up here:
tinyurl.com/yfvycxut
3 months ago
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Congratulations to Jess! You can read her piece for MTC on precarity and platform hygiene MTC:
mid-theory.com/2025/04/03/o...
add a skeleton here at some point
3 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Association of Adaptation Studies
3 months ago
adaptation really IS everywhere!
add a skeleton here at some point
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