Curating some of the best recent links across literature, philosophy, and the arts
The weekly round-up brings together the articles, reviews, interviews and miscellany that has caught my eye over the past seven days. Including: Zadie Smith on Trump and multiculturalism; photographer John Minihan on spending a day with Francis Bacon and William Burroughs; and a look at the house where H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds. Take a look, and feel free to share!
Literature, Poetry, Theatre
- Three Days with Thomas Bernhard
- Returning to Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot
- Examining Brooklyn’s Fictions
- Carl Jung Writes a Review of James Joyce’s Ulysses
- On the romanticization – and the realities – of mental illness and art
- New site for the Angela Carter celebrations in Bristol
- Jack Kerouac, Ralph Ellison, Ray Bradbury, John Updike, Saul Bellow, & Norman Mailer respond to a symbolism survey
- The house where H.G. Wells wrote The War of The Worlds
- To Kill a Mockingbird removed from Virginia schools for racist language
- “After Sherlock Holmes, I stopped reading until my early twenties.” —Kazuo Ishiguro
- Zadie Smith on optimism and despair
- “The job of writers is to carry on defying the normalization of what is happening” – Zadie Smith
- Fresh Air Weekend: Novelist Zadie Smith and ‘Daily Show’ Host Trevor Noah
- On the enduring appeal of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, half a century after its first publication
- Endpapers to original first German edition of W. G. Sebald’s Die Ringe des Saturn
- Moby Dick rejection letter asks Herman Melville: “Does it have to be a whale?”
- The Digital Literary Atlas of Wales project
- J.G. Ballard’s house – the perfect place to crash
- Did you know the Sex Pistols’ debut album cover was inspired by the modernist magazine Blast?
- What’s changed, and what hasn’t, in the town that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird
- Hear 23 hours of H.P. Lovecraft stories
- “I never write anything that I don’t think will be paid for.” —Truman Capote
- Edward Bawden illustration for Jonathan Swift’s The Voyages of Lemuel Gulliver to Lilliput and Brobdingnag (Folio Society, 1948)
- Philip K. Dick’s favorite classical music: A free, 11-hour playlist
- John Minihan on a day in London with Francis Bacon and William S. Burroughs
- Hear what Homer’s Odyssey sounded like when sung in the original Ancient Greek
- A CUNY video discussion on Reiner Stach’s Kafka biography
- Hunter S. Thompson‘s widow wants to get you high on his personal supply
- A new Eugene O’Neill biography is a juicy volume that brims with offstage theatrics
- The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test at 50
- An inside look at Philipp Preuss’ new stage adaptation of Albert Camus‘ 1942 novel L’Étranger in Berlin
Art, Design, Photography
- A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde, a MoMA exhibition with 260 major works from 1912 to 1935
- See Harlem at the height of the Great Migration through the eyes of a young Black girl, Mildred Harris
- New exhibition foregrounds the forgotten work of modern photographer Kati Horna
- At Night – Andrea Levers
- John Minihan on a day in London with Francis Bacon and William S. Burroughs
- Legal fight over the $127 million sale of a Leonardo da Vinci painting entangles Sotheby’s
- Read The New Yorker‘s critical take on the new Francis Picabia retrospective at MoMA
- Are utopian ideas good for architecture?
Philosophy & Theory
- Boredom gets a bad rap, but its defenders include Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, Sontag
- An inside look at Philipp Preuss’ new stage adaptation of Albert Camus‘ 1942 novel L’Étranger in Berlin
- Carl Jung Writes a Review of James Joyce’s Ulysses
Music
- David Bowie Talks and Sings on The Dick Cavett Show (1974)
- Did you know the Sex Pistols’ debut album cover was inspired by the modernist magazine Blast?
- Philip K. Dick’s favorite classical music: A free, 11-hour playlist
- Can You Hear Agnes Martin’s Serenity in John Zorn’s Frenzied Music?
- Disputed Beethoven manuscript fails to sell at auction. Sotheby’s blames a music professor
- From Kanye to Public Enemy: 10 key musical moments in Spike Lee movies
- Reading Albert Murray in the Age of Trump
Film & TV
- Hear Stanley Kubrick’s rare 1965 interview with The New Yorker
- How Stanley Kubrick made his masterpieces: an introduction to his obsessive approach to filmmaking
- The films of Fritz Lang include the first examples of sci-fi film, serial killer movies & film noir
- Sculpting in Time by Andrey Tarkovsky
- After being cancelled by Comedy Central, Larry Wilmore has a new home with ABC
- Ridley Scott: five essential films
- Get the inside story on the opening titles of David Fincher’s Panic Room
- From Kanye to Public Enemy: 10 key musical moments in Spike Lee movies
News & Politics
- Stephanie Boland launches a Twitter thread asking women: ‘best time you’ve had your own topic explained to you?’
- To Kill a Mockingbird removed from Virginia schools for racist language
- Zadie Smith on optimism and despair
- “The job of writers is to carry on defying the normalization of what is happening” – Zadie Smith
- What’s changed, and what hasn’t, in the town that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird
- Reading Albert Murray in the Age of Trump
Miscellaneous
- CFP: Ted Hughes & Place, University of Huddersfield, June 2017
- Interested in learning about World War I through war diaries, visual art, & trauma theories? Check out MLC practicum opps