Baby Heists
For the last half century, the international adoption of orphans has been used to cast imperial warfare and extraction as humanitarianism
Private Pornography
...kind of theory? About patterns in culture, gender, sexuality, shame, desire... everything really. There are many writers in your stories, self-professed; could you talk a little bit about that? Sontag...
Of Suicide
...dignity, nor deliberation. “Crime of Passion, Your Honor,” I’d tell the judge, “it was manslaughter.” I’ve tried to kill myself twice. I feel a twinge of disingenuousness even writing that,...
Black Metal Is Sublime
...Nocturno Culto, typically espousing an antiphilosophy of misanthropic individualism. In the genre’s native Norway in the early-to-mid 1990s, Black Metal spawned a culture of criminal one-upmanship that left in its...
Fan Nonfiction
Heroic tales about video-game production mask how the hobby holds both its audience and performers captive
Personal Ads
...for bloggers”; “a harness for your body so u can walk around with your laptop as u skype”), commentary on high and low culture (“bronze pokemon”; “a taco bell for...
Do No Harm
...place. Sarah Ahmed calls the “melancholic migrant” a “ghostly figure, haunting contemporary culture as a kind of unnecessary and hurtful reminder of racism.” Her argument is more complicated than that,...
Bikini, Kill
...a recurring motif). Later, the camera closes in on its protagonists and the curves of their thighs, their bra cups. The movie operates on a standard tenet of our culture:...
Guest Post: The Politics of Tibetan "Plateau Redness"
...identity, policy, and culture are inextricably entwined. I urge you to read the original essay here ; the writer cannot be identified for safety reasons. Tricia Kehoe, an Irish scholar...
come on, get it!
with Thom Donovan, Malik Gaines, Ethan Philbrick, Wikipedia and the Online Etymology Dictionary
Die 4 U
...that Lana Del Rey that sounds exactly like that glorious pretense. Her songs are, in essence, nostalgia for an old lie. The culture makes a dictum of authenticity and a...
Yellow Fever
Desire is something that’s irrational, and often delusional.
What Happens in Girls Club
...is not an ideal time to get a lot of teaching done. Music from Dance Club wafted in from the vents as me and my co-teacher (a longtime friend) tried...
Against Students
...consuming subject who wants the wrong things, a student who is found wanting, is hard at work. She is how an idea of universal knowledge or universal culture can be...
Anger Management
...powerful that government officers are afraid to speak out against them. Their effect on Salvador’s culture has been similarly disastrous. Today, young boys regularly drop out of school to become...
Reign in Drool
...outer experience. Yet their dependence on concrete rules have created a culture disproportionately fond of logic. Players romance the poetry of the command prompt while ignoring the entropic ennui of...