Sewing Dissent
A generation beleaguered by insecurity has lifted thimble-covered middle fingers to the “new normal”
The Oakland Raiders
While the housing markets of many post-industrial cities are still suffering, Oakland is absorbing the hopes, dreams, and dollars of a California tech boom that won’t be confined to San Francisco and Silicon Valley
Women Cuddling Animals
Gentle women and wild animals are linked in myth and fable, fashion photography and pornography, pulp art and fine art; men hunt wild animals, and women cuddle them
Personal Ads
In an online milieu where everyone markets themselves, net artists have made selling out its own medium
The Postmodernity of Big Data
In addressing the insecurities of postmodern thought, Big Data falls prey to some of the same issues of interpretation
Very Serious Populists
The point of voting systems is not to highlight the best content but to build and maintain a hegemonic discourse
The White Man's Burden
If male artist Chris Burden didn't exist, the New Museum had to invent him
Room to Despair
In the U.K., capital’s casualties are losing even the space to go mad
Commies for Christ
In Giorgio Agamben's The Highest Poverty, the monastery and the non-law of monastic codes suggest an alternative approach to life in late capitalism
Splay Attention
I don’t think it’s bad when artists treat me as if I’m there. In fact, I’m more sympathetic to those who do. Because I am.
Contemporary Scottish Friction
The coming Scottish independence vote has given new energy to the would-be national literary culture
The Daddest Place on Earth
The low-budget unsanctioned film Escape from Tomorrow is a better-than-documentary look inside the oxymoronic Magic Kingdom
Extremists in The Mainstream
Max Blumenthal's Goliath finds fascism in Israel, but overlooks the mask it's hiding behind
Just Friends
When it comes to friendship, self-help is no substitute for politics
Us and Them
If novels are to help us understand 21st century threats like terrorism, late 20th century masculinist realism will need to give way to hysterical realism
How to Waste a Crisis
Philip Mirowski’s Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste seeks to discredit economic explanations of the crisis, but in so doing discounts any possible political alternatives to neoliberalism