Essays Archive | Los Angeles Review of Books

All Essays

Ghost Ships
The Southeast Asia refugee crisis points to a thriving trafficking trade in the region, especially from Myanmar.
Francis WadeMay 30, 2015
- Around the World
The Art of Resurrection: Montage of Heck
"Twenty-one years after his death, we're promised a Kurt Cobain we've never seen before."
May 29, 2015
The Anatomy of a Massacre
There was something new about the Karachi killings, not least because they targeted a community that hadn't previously been on the frontline of religious conflict.
May 27, 2015
A Wandering Will: Mary Reid Kelley Discusses Swinburne’s “Pasiphae”
Mary Reid Kelley's nine-minute melodrama, for which Swinburne’s text serves as the screenplay, is the second in a trilogy of films based loosely on the story of the Minotaur (the monstrous fruit of Pasiphae’s lust), made in collaboration with artist Patrick Kelley.
James CahillMay 25, 2015
- Art & Architecture
- Poetry
Forty Years’ War
Jim HinchMay 24, 2015
The Ethical Game: Morality in Postapocalyptic Fictions from Cormac McCarthy to Video Games
David Roman discusses Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," "The Walking Dead," and "DayZ."
David RomanMay 23, 2015
- Noir
- Television
50 Shades of Libertarian Love
Walter Benn Michael's excerpt from from a longer piece forthcoming in "Neoliberalism and Literature."
May 22, 2015
- Gender & Sexuality
- Politics
Mona Simpson, “Middlemarch,” and the Anti-Marriage Plot
Marriage is neither an ending nor a beginning in "Off Keck Road." Instead, Mona Simpson let's it flicker at the edge of vision.
Rachel PastanMay 20, 2015
- Fiction
Game of Thrones: Season 5, "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"
Fantasizing Consent
Sarah MesleMay 19, 2015
- Dear Television
Unpacking the Museum: Renzo Piano’s American Museums and His New Whitney
Piano’s Whitney Museum is open, accessible, energized, urban, and fun.
Joseph GiovanniniMay 19, 2015
- Art & Architecture
Mad Men, Season 7: "Person to Person"
'The Waste Land'
Lili Loofbourow, Phillip MaciakMay 18, 2015
- Dear Television
The Purist’s Dilemma: Spiritual Pollution in a Modern World
Some segments of the Haredi community have adopted increasingly strict interpretations of Jewish law.
Nomi Maya StolzenbergMay 17, 2015
- Cultural Studies
- Religion
A Torrent of Punk, Techno, and Radical Art
The Chaos Computer Club has been central to hacktivism's transition in Berlin from a little-known subculture into a powerful and highly visible arm of the city's activist left.
Jane CavalierMay 15, 2015
- Politics
Dancing with Michael Jackson
Baltimore and its discontents
Toni BowersMay 14, 2015
- Music
The Destruction of Art and Antiquities in Our Time
The threat to antiquities today is far greater from projects for dams, airports, parking lots, and the rest of the activities of modernization than targeted wholesale devastation.
Frederick BohrerMay 14, 2015
- Art & Architecture
Game of Thrones: Season 5, "Kill the Boy"
50 Shades of Greyscale
Sarah MesleMay 13, 2015
- Dear Television