Found in translation
Or, the art of the error
An archeology of the air
On Havelok the Dane, medieval air & the world’s largest wind farm
Tragedy & farce in climate commentary
« We are fucked » vs. « It’s not too late ». The Club of Rome’s Earth for All offers a burst of stubborn optimism. But when does stubborn optimism become cruel optimism?
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 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.
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?
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.
« My ghost, we do no batshit »
On the untranslatability of Ukrainian jokes
How to people a landscape
On Cyril Schäublin’s Unrueh (2022), cinema & scale. « No other film has so resized me. »
Books reviewed in this issue
Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity
Reviewed by Ingo Venzke
Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change, and Pandemics
Reviewed by Ingo Venzke
Limits to Growth: A Report on the Predicament of Mankind
Reviewed by Ingo Venzke
Unrueh
Reviewed by Christy Wampole
Edda Mussolini: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe
Reviewed by Sarah Watling
Sisters in Resistance: How a German spy, a banker’s wife, and Mussolini’s daughter outwitted the Nazis
Reviewed by Sarah Watling
Distant Fathers
Reviewed by Eloisa Morra
Return to Latvia
Reviewed by Eloisa Morra
Im Wald der Metropolen
Reviewed by Walter Grünzweig
Motley Stones
Reviewed by Peter Frederick Matthews
The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
Reviewed by Charles S. Maier