Male Bonding

Tom Matlack There’s a gash under my left eye, my right thumb throbs like a son-of-a-bitch, and I keep seeing stars. My whole body hurts. I have a red beard—if you can call it that—after a week of uneven growth. On the plane ride home from Florida to Boston, people look at me like I’m… More

How to Think About Politics

Ryan McCarl First, question everything, beginning with the political ideas you inherited from your parents, family, community, church, and school. Create an inventory, in your mind or on paper, of these ideas: what are your strong, visceral, “gut” feelings about the political parties, religion in schools, the legalization versus criminalization of abortion, taxation, drug laws,… More

A Modest Proposal: Regarding the Protection of Antiquities from Wanton Destruction in Future War

Jascha Kessler The title of the following observations might better be offered as, “…from wanton destruction by the present heirs and/or occupiers of the lands of their original creators.” As we were sadly aware, immediately upon the lightning-swift liberation of Baghdad after a campaign of less than four weeks it was discovered, even as guns… More

The Next Forgotten War

Ryan McCarl Human beings have strong emotional immune systems, and human societies have a remarkable capacity for collective forgetfulness. Milan Kundera, writing of the effect of the news cycle on historical memory, once said: “The bloody massacre in Bangladesh quickly covered the memory of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the war in the Sinai desert… More

In the Great Dismal Swamp: History, Journalism, and Our Classic Literature

Jascha Kessler The assumption that “contemporary history” is also manifested in “contemporary literature” is one of those notions with a long tradition. It can be traced back in critical discourse to Aristotle’s Poetics, in which he remarked that poetry is superior to history. The metaphysical problem underlying historical writing was already present in Plato’s The… More

Amy King on Bush, Empathy, and the Poet

(A supplement to her poem I Want To Make You Safe) “The costs – a few billion dollars a month plus a few dozen American fatalities (a figure which will probably diminish, and which is in any case comparable to the number of US motorcyclists killed because of repealed helmet laws) – are negligible compared… More