Death Dreams
...of our craven soullessness. “Consciously or not, Houellebecq’s writing exhibits the schizophrenic pull of consumption culture,” Jeffery writes, “how unreal it seems and yet how enmeshed in it we remain.”...
The Year of Magical Thinking
Viral manifestation logics imagine that everyone else is an NPC
Memory and Preservation
...was already frayed and past any possible human repair. In these futures, we lose past and present. The inhabitants of “Imaginum” therefore take steps to preserve and protect culture,...
Arguing the Web (3): Post-Text
...culture of self-centered, distracted readers who forgot the MLA guidelines for correct citation. The real interest lies in criticism about the growing culture of subjectivity that puts feelings before facts,...
The Myth of Cyberspace
...place shared by multiple disembodied minds. However, the very same phrase also aptly describes the role that the concept of cyberspace has now come to occupy in contemporary culture. What...
War Comes Home for Dinner
...of a culture of its own, for now it still takes us out of the ones we belong to. Sharing recipes, cooking meals with family, meeting friends at a favorite...
Yer Cheatin' Heart: Beauty and Infidelity
...was surprised by the findings of this study at first. On the surface, our culture tends to equate beauty with sex appeal more than it connects beauty and lovability. (The...
"Art"
...alleged democratization effect afforded by networked technologies is often posited as the most significant recent development in culture and society, posing new questions—or, let’s face it, the same old questions—as...
Wild Wild East
...as two other Worlds’ Fairs). In various popular culture depictions, he is at once lauded for his fierce commitment to defending the freedom of his people and reviled for his...
Shame: A Durkheimian Take
...read, otherwise I'm just another selfish Tory). Instead, he just appears utterly stuck with himself. In these respects, Brandon's character is entirely at odds with the therapy culture of New...
Meritocracy and measurement myths
...opportunity to thrive through rigorous and ceaseless testing. I imagine that some view the Occupy unrest in this light; our culture's well-groomed and highly educated elite could be looking out...
The Madman's Interpreters
...culture. But maybe their particular power, a power that can be almost scary, comes from their inability or refusal to find or accept a niche, to fit in. Certainly artists...
Editors' Note, Vol. 34: California
...culture. Holding down the fort are drag culture’s estranged sellout stepchildren: The Real Housewives. The suburban realness of reality television reveals even hetero designs like master-planned subdivisions as forms of...
You Belong Here, Beloved Reader - An Interview with Diriye Osman
"I really wanted The Butterfly Jungle to have the energy of a super-fly Somali sheesha session"
Soft Borders
The soft patriotic trust in Canada's softly administered border is fully compatible with the logic of restriction.
Gut of the Quantifier
...practice eludes codification, it provides a living resource for the preservation of oral culture ... Senior executives, because of the authority they enjoy, have been able to preserve the orality...