Essays Archive | Los Angeles Review of Books

All Essays

"Visible: Out on Television": an LGBTQ TV Roundtable
A group of TV scholars consider Apple TV+'s new docuseries, "Visible: Out on Television," and the narratives of history and visibility it tells.
Alfred L. Martin Jr., Beck Banks, Hollis Griffin, Julia Himberg, Lauren Herold, Maria San Filippo, Mayra BottaroJun 23, 2020
- Gender & Sexuality
- Television
Cinema’s First Epidemic: From Contagious Twitching to Convulsive Laughter
Maggie Hennefeld explores epidemics in early slapstick: as subject, as context, and as commodity.
Maggie HennefeldJun 23, 2020
There Is No Other Place: J. M. Coetzee’s Jesus Trilogy
Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee’s Jesus trilogy is a stark allegory of dystopian modernity.
Marie Luise KnottJun 22, 2020
Real Life Rock Top 10: June 2020 — Part II
LARB presents the second, all–Bob Dylan edition of the June installment of “Real Life Rock Top 10,” a monthly column by cultural critic Greil Marcus.
Greil MarcusJun 19, 2020
- Music
- Politics
Post-377: LGBTQ Literary Culture in India
LGBTQ fiction is blossoming in India following the decriminalization of homosexuality.
Saikat MajumdarJun 19, 2020
Time Machine
Poet and seminal Los Angeles publisher Aleida Rodríguez travels back in time, and always takes the scenic route.
Aleida RodríguezJun 18, 2020
- Nonfiction
Owning the Asphalt
Joseph Giovannini praises the protestors who took back the streets from the Landlord-in-Chief.
Joseph GiovanniniJun 18, 2020
- Politics
Our Testament
A 1983 movie about nuclear war has much to say about motherhood, family, and domestic life.
Kyle Raymond FitzpatrickJun 16, 2020
- Film
- Nonfiction
Conflict Twists
Ellen Elias-Bursac, who lived in Yugoslavia in the 1970 and ’80s, examines three moments that capture the slipperiness of the feelings aroused by conflict.
Ellen Elias-BursacJun 12, 2020
- Around the World
- Politics
Thriving in Isolation and Beyond: The Empowering Poetry of Vasyl Stus
The work of Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus, who spent over a decade in Soviet prisons, is newly relevant in our time of self-isolation.
Bohdan TokarskyJun 9, 2020
Real Life Rock Top 10: June 2020 — Part I
LARB presents the first part of the June installment of “Real Life Rock Top 10,” a monthly column by cultural critic Greil Marcus.
Greil MarcusJun 8, 2020
- Music
Time Machine: Excerpts from "Time Tells"
Masha Tupitsyn considers the passage of time, Felicity, and stand-up comedy
Masha TupitsynJun 7, 2020
- Television
Laguna Revisited
Sara Davis revisits an early reality TV classic
Sara DavisJun 6, 2020
- Television
A Very Brief History of Authenticity in Hip-Hop
Felicia Angeja Viator on the complicated nature of "authenticity" in hip-hop
Felicia Angeja ViatorJun 5, 2020
- Music
Do Black Lives Matter to Westworld? On TV Fantasies of Racial Violence
Hope Wabuke considers the violence against black children at the heart of HBO's Westworld and whether the show will ever have something to say about it.
Hope WabukeJun 4, 2020
- Television
renegades, Maybe: A Short Story
A short story.
Francisco McCurryJun 3, 2020
- LARB Lit