Mid Theory Collective
@mid-theory.bsky.social
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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
about 2 months ago
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Article Illustrations by Carolyn Jao for Mid Theory Collective
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2 days ago
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In case you missed it, here is a juicy essay for your weekend read.
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about 2 hours 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/
2 days ago
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Saronik Bosu
2 days ago
This essay over the new Wuthering Heights
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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/
2 days ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Oakland Review of Books
7 days 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
9 days 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/
10 days 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/
10 days 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/
24 days 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/
24 days ago
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Kasia
25 days ago
Coming this fall! Started as a Twitter (RIP) conversation and now it’s got a most pleasing cover!
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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/
about 1 month 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/
about 1 month 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/
about 1 month 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/
about 1 month ago
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Ben Railton
about 1 month 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/
about 1 month 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?"
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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/
about 1 month 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/
about 1 month 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/
about 1 month ago
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Farah Bakaari
about 1 month 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/
about 1 month 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/
about 2 months ago
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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
about 2 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
about 2 months ago
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Association of Adaptation Studies
about 2 months ago
adaptation really IS everywhere!
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Adaptation is everywhere! This spring MTC is running a new series called ADAPTATION ANXIETY, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. To kick off our managing editor Martha Henzy takes on the unsexy absolution of the gothic monster.
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Not My Byronic Hero! Or, Whither the Monster?
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/2026/02/26/not-my-byronic-hero-or-wither-the-monster/
about 2 months ago
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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
about 2 months ago
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Mid Theory Collective
Douglas Dowland
about 2 months ago
Reading the pedagogy column at
@mid-theory.bsky.social
and finding it to be quite good!
mid-theory.com/category/ped...
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Pedagogy – Mid Theory Collective
Posts about Pedagogy written by Alec Abramson, John Downes-Angus, and Samuel P. Catlin
https://mid-theory.com/category/pedagogy/
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Our monthly newsletter just went out. And because humans, committed and overcommitted humans do our homework the newsletter which goes out on February 23 can have "January" in its subject line. Check out what we have been up to and what is coming!
tinyurl.com/53tanrns
about 2 months ago
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MTC is launching a pedagogy section, where we invite our colleagues to reflect on a question, an assignment, an activity, an experience, a challenge, or a joy they have had in the classroom. To kick off, Alec Abramson, a recent college graduate, discusses his adventures with "dramaturgy design."
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The Questioning Spirit: Bringing Visual Dramaturgy into the Classroom
What if we understand text as a multi-faceted, dynamic object in which design and embodiment already lurk? The definition of dramaturgy is in constant flux, often dependent on the person or people …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/02/23/the-questioning-spirit-bringing-visual-dramaturgy-into-the-classroom/
about 2 months ago
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John Downes-Angus
about 2 months ago
Love this idea and encourage my HS pedagogy people to follow along!
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MTC is launching a pedagogy section, where we invite our colleagues to reflect on a question, an assignment, an activity, an experience, a challenge, or a joy they have had in the classroom. To kick off, Alec Abramson, a recent college graduate, discusses his adventures with "dramaturgy design."
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The Questioning Spirit: Bringing Visual Dramaturgy into the Classroom
What if we understand text as a multi-faceted, dynamic object in which design and embodiment already lurk? The definition of dramaturgy is in constant flux, often dependent on the person or people …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/02/23/the-questioning-spirit-bringing-visual-dramaturgy-into-the-classroom/
about 2 months ago
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Dan Sinykin
2 months ago
This episode opens with an extraordinary—if also utterly banal, routine—story of a professional ethical lapse told by
@bakaari.bsky.social
, which you must hear. It's in the first four minutes. But you won't want to stop after that.
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Oakland Review of Books
2 months ago
Some friendly corruption from us!
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A review of a book by someone who has given us money
More people should take a silly thing really seriously, for years and years and years, and then call it a book and throw a party. What else is the point of being alive?
https://www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/hop-fight-frank-t-marquardt-review/
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lindsay thomas
2 months ago
This is just another way of saying that I love mixed methods work, I guess. Archival research? Yes! Data collection? Yes! Quantitative analysis? Yes! Close reading? Yes! Case studies? Yes! Theoretical speculation? Yes! Let’s do it all why not
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For MTC, our contributing writer Charline Jao writes about Shih-Ching Tsou’s new film LEFT-HANDED GIRL and the melodrama of late capitalism. Illustrations by MTC Contributing Illustrator Carolyn Jao
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Sold for Parts: ‘Left-Handed Girl’ and Taiwan’s Markets
These are the choices given to a young girl: you can aspire to normality by “correcting” the evil thing within you, embrace evil and do bad things, or live with the constant assertion that you are …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/02/12/sold-for-parts-left-handed-girl-and-taiwans-markets/
2 months ago
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"There is a lose-lose conundrum: male characters repeatedly make each female character’s life harder in some way (debt, romantic disappointment, etc.), yet the absence of a patriarch or “protector” is its own burden." Catch Charline Jao on Shih-Ching Tsou’s new film!
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Sold for Parts: ‘Left-Handed Girl’ and Taiwan’s Markets
These are the choices given to a young girl: you can aspire to normality by “correcting” the evil thing within you, embrace evil and do bad things, or live with the constant assertion that you are …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/02/12/sold-for-parts-left-handed-girl-and-taiwans-markets/
2 months ago
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For MTC, our contributing writer Charline Jao writes about Shih-Ching Tsou’s new film LEFT-HANDED GIRL and the melodrama of late capitalism. Illustrations by MTC Contributing Illustrator Carolyn Jao
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Sold for Parts: ‘Left-Handed Girl’ and Taiwan’s Markets
These are the choices given to a young girl: you can aspire to normality by “correcting” the evil thing within you, embrace evil and do bad things, or live with the constant assertion that you are …
https://mid-theory.com/2026/02/12/sold-for-parts-left-handed-girl-and-taiwans-markets/
2 months ago
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Our colleagues at Lateral Journal are working on a special issue, titled "Performance Between Post-Truths." Check out their CfP at the link below and consider submitting.
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Upcoming Issues & Calls for Papers - Lateral
Lateral is published semi-annually, fall and spring. General submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, and deadlines for special issues/sections are noted below. All submissions should follow the i...
https://csalateral.org/upcoming/#performance-between-post-truths
2 months ago
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Mitch Therieau
2 months ago
For
@newyorker.com
, I wrote about Bruce Springsteen and also the guy from Staind:
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
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What Do We Want from a Protest Song?
For a genre that confronts the horrors of the present, the protest song of 2026 is curiously backward-looking.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-lede/what-do-we-want-from-a-protest-song?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dhtwitter&utm_content=null
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For the Saturday crowd.
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2 months ago
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For MTC, a reading group reflects on Tsai's WALKER, the literature & legacy of the flâneur, and why thinking needs straying. "After metaphysics, the monk becomes the aesthete; the empty space left behind by the death of God is filled up by art, literature, and, of course, Tsai Ming-Liang’s cinema."
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Astray: A Reading Journal
The following conversation emerges from the authors’ reading group’s discussion of Tsai Ming-Liang’s film, Walker (2012). Tsai Ming-Liang is a Malaysian-Taiwanese director, part of Taiw…
https://mid-theory.com/?p=4878&preview=1&_ppp=b8cb1ca008
2 months ago
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Alan
3 months ago
I ordered this book because of the review. Just a shout out to book reviews.
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Today we have such a cool practice-focused piece out! The talented folks of Los Angeles Performance Practice let us peek behind the curtain and eavesdrop into one of their post- mortem conversations. It's also an experiment in coauthorship, with the Co-Directors of LAPP speaking as one voice! 🎭
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Peek Behind the Curtain: A CASUAL Theatre Post-Mortem
I wonder what happened in the dressing room(s)? Did they all share one? What did we miss? In theatre, a “post-mortem” is the practice of evaluating a show once it has closed. It is a time for the c…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/01/30/peek-behind-the-curtain-a-casual-theatre-post-mortem/
3 months ago
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John Downes-Angus
3 months ago
Book clubs! This essay was so interesting—and I can’t wait to read the book. More convos about reading and what it means for all of us.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Today we have such a cool practice-focused piece out! The talented folks of Los Angeles Performance Practice let us peek behind the curtain and eavesdrop into one of their post- mortem conversations. It's also an experiment in coauthorship, with the Co-Directors of LAPP speaking as one voice! 🎭
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Peek Behind the Curtain: A CASUAL Theatre Post-Mortem
I wonder what happened in the dressing room(s)? Did they all share one? What did we miss? In theatre, a “post-mortem” is the practice of evaluating a show once it has closed. It is a time for the c…
https://mid-theory.com/2026/01/30/peek-behind-the-curtain-a-casual-theatre-post-mortem/
3 months ago
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Dan Sinykin
3 months ago
Check out the CFP for this pair of VIRTUAL mini-conferences on SLOP and NOSTALGIA, held by DLC+. I attended some of the previous mini-conference they put on it and it was great. Highly recommend. Keynote by the great Tess McNulty
@dlcplus.org
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
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CFP: DLC+ Presents Current Keywords in Digital Literary Culture Mini-Conference: "Slop" and "Nostalgia"
We are excited to announce the second installment of our Current Keywords in Digital Literary Culture series, mini-conferences devoted to studying the most pressing and emerging concepts actively shap...
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf-vT-PA_OOhkwAUcv96KmakpG9Kp16hHmcnleDpXDTmsifWA/viewform
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Kasia
3 months ago
So grateful for this engaged and thoughtful review of my book!
add a skeleton here at some point
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