Two Generations of South African Nonfiction
Reading van Onselen and Steinberg together suggests a telling generational shift of mood about how South African stories can, and ought, to be told.
All Reviews
Self, with or without Selfies
A self is not a physical object. There isn't a little homunculus inside you or a mini-person sitting inside the mini-cab of a mini-crane moving your limbs.
Spying on Students
Patriotic Betrayal is a cautionary tale about how our government compromises well-meaning people in the name of fighting “our enemies.”
Which One Was Truly Radical?
Not Loving, Working!
"What is it about my profession, reading and thinking about books, that makes the categories of love and work so vulnerable to confusion?"
Egypt’s Megafantasies
How have Egypt’s uprisings altered desert development
Dumbing Down the Underground
How the underground imploded is now clearer. Why it existed in the first place remains the enduring question and greater mystery.
A Mother Where?
"'Wrestling the Angel' is a comprehensive synthesis of Mormon theology."
Mad Girl’s Love Song: Meg Wolitzer’s “Belzhar” and the Invention of Narrative
"Belzhar," Meg Wolitzer's novel for young adults, is ultimately about facing and writing what best tells the story of you.
The Significance of Philip Glass
“Philip Glass has become, whether he likes it or not, a name on a list of sound-material used to induce states of mind.”
Queering the Momoir
Is there something inherently queer about pregnancy itself?
Apocalypse Never
Jerome Winter on "Sf Now," Paradoxa 26 (2014), edited by Mark Bould and Rhys Williams.
A Short Story Can Ruin Your Life
If "There's Something I Want You to Do" contains a lesson, it is that inventing one's own decalogue — one's own set of rules, one's own morality — carries quite a risk, not of damnation, but of existential exhaustion.
Looking for Meaning — Alan Lightman Reimagines His Southern Home
Alan Lightman’s new memoir makes memories less about “facts” than about how we process and continually reshuffle them.
Citizen Thiel
Peter Thiel’s neo-aristocratic technodemocracy.
Back to the Next Great Recession
Eichengreen's main point about the Great Recession is well taken: we ought to stop patting ourselves on the back and take a much harder look at what we got wrong.