Perhentian Sunrise
A story about romance. « The eve of a suitor’s arrival, bigger than Christmas or birthday, I tell you. »
Found in translation
Or, the art of the error
On location
Mission: Impossible and Eurocentric stunts, from Hollywood to Hong Kong. What does an action movie want to be?
An archeology of the air
On Havelok the Dane, medieval air & the world’s largest wind farm
The Mass of Mies
« Less is more »? The scale and shape of his body gave the architect Mies van der Rohe an unequaled weight and architectural authority.
An axe to grind should make you sharper
Forensic Architecture charts state-organized crimes, genocide and other disasters in three dimensions. «Flat maps can’t convey the politics of water and shit.»
Reviews
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (Part One)
Reviewed by George Blaustein
Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity
Reviewed by Ingo Venzke
Edda Mussolini: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe
Reviewed by Sarah Watling
The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
Reviewed by Charles S. Maier
Distant Fathers
Reviewed by Eloisa Morra
Motley Stones
Reviewed by Peter Frederick Matthews
Latest
An axe to grind should make you sharper
Forensic Architecture charts state-organized crimes, genocide and other disasters in three dimensions. «Flat maps can’t convey the politics of water and shit.»
The inborn germ
Why death? Who or what dies? Philosophers tend not to explain, but to justify. When do such questions become biological questions? Does it help?
No man’s land
On Edda Mussolini & fashionable fascism. Can a woman be dangerous yet powerless?
The invention of austerity
Dramatic economic inflations have punctuated twentieth-century political history. Is austerity a class strategy?
Doom is in the details
Floods, hailstorms, plague, fire, children lost on a mountain or trapped for years in a ruined villa. On the stories of Adalbert Stifter.
The cemetery-goer
On the travels of Karl-Markus Gauß, and the unlikely guardians of the dream of Europe.
How to people a landscape
On Cyril Schäublin’s Unrueh (2022), cinema & scale. « No other film has so resized me. »
« My ghost, we do no batshit »
On the untranslatability of Ukrainian jokes
The pulverization of memory
Write your memoir in a hostile tongue. On Marina Jarre, from Latvia to Italy and back.
Beamer, Dressman, Bodybag
On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish & global Englisch. « My own language, made camp. »
Top pearls
1
On Natalia Ginzburg’s Valentino
On Natalia Ginzburg’s Valentino, newly translated: a Q&A with Alexander Chee.
2
Bee Gees FAQ
Fragen, Antworten, Quintessenzen.
3
It wasn’t the beer
How could it be that despite decades of rigorous European unification, of open borders and largely adjusted standards of living, a virus was able to kill up to 40 times more people in one country than in another, only a few hundred kilometers away?
Es war nicht das Bier
Wie konnte es sein, dass trotz jahrzehntelanger rigoroser europäischer Einigung, offener Grenzen und weitgehend angeglichener Lebensstandards ein Virus in einem Land bis zu 40 Mal mehr Menschen töten konnte als in einem anderen, nur wenige hundert Kilometer entfernt?
4
Firsts in space
A friend of mine likes to say that the moon landing was real, but dumb. On astronautical tokenism.
5
How to write; or, how to insult
Shoulders were slapped, fingers pointed, hearts fired up. Perhaps a little scuffle broke out after class, a boisterous wrestling over insults exchanged. Nothing to be concerned about. Acquiring knowledge was, after all, a combative affair.
On location
Mission: Impossible and Eurocentric stunts, from Hollywood to Hong Kong. What does an action movie want to be?
The art of losing
On artificial intelligence, murderous elephants & Elizabeth Bishop
No man’s land
On Edda Mussolini & fashionable fascism. Can a woman be dangerous yet powerless?
The invention of austerity
Dramatic economic inflations have punctuated twentieth-century political history. Is austerity a class strategy?
The pulverization of memory
Write your memoir in a hostile tongue. On Marina Jarre, from Latvia to Italy and back.
Perhentian Sunrise
A story about romance. « The eve of a suitor’s arrival, bigger than Christmas or birthday, I tell you. »
Doom is in the details
Floods, hailstorms, plague, fire, children lost on a mountain or trapped for years in a ruined villa. On the stories of Adalbert Stifter.
Beamer, Dressman, Bodybag
On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish & global Englisch. « My own language, made camp. »
The cemetery-goer
On the travels of Karl-Markus Gauß, and the unlikely guardians of the dream of Europe.