Confession
March 1, 2022
A new poem by Raymond Nat Turner.
Article Subjects and Geography: Culture
We Must Return to the Future
January 1, 2022
The Cuban Revolution cannot disintegrate because it was never made of meringue. Not because it has not been sweet, but because the revolution has also tasted bitter fruits that, to date, we have known how to turn into strengths.
Disney, Salò, and Pasolini’s Inconsumable Art
November 1, 2021
The increasing consolidation of the modern entertainment industry by a small clique of multinational streaming giants is the next step in the "standardization of style" in mass-consumed art. The work of Pier Paolo Pasolini can help remind us of what we're missing.
Herd impunity?
October 1, 2021
A new poem by Black Agenda Report poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner.
COVID-19 in the Two Koreas
September 1, 2021
The two Koreas—sharing a language, cultural traditions, history of imperial conquest and war, and interrupted family connections—both have mostly succeeded in controlling the pandemic, within different political-economic systems and with markedly different methods.
Can the Chinese Diaspora Speak?
July 1, 2021
The Chinese diaspora is compelled either to prostrate to an edifying project of assimilation to U.S. liberal democracy, or be branded as illiberal "Red Guards" unfit for serious political discourse. This discursive context has long mobilized overseas Chinese to affirm the universalism of Western liberalism in opposition to a Chinese despotism defined either by dynastic backwardness or communist depravity. Can overseas Chinese speak for themselves in the face of the West's "hegemonic right to knowledge?" Or will all such speech that challenges U.S. presuppositions of liberal selfhood and Chinese despotism simply be tuned out as illiberal noise?
Was Folk Music a Commie Plot?
April 1, 2021
The revival of folk music—music derived from rural southern sources, unamplified, and, to a large extent, comprised of old songs of anonymous origin—was more than just another fad. Folk music encapsulated longings for an idyllic past, for a time before crass commercialism turned music into a commodity, and for relationships between musicians and audiences that were egalitarian and holistic.
Science and Politics
- Issue:
- Vol. 72, No. 01 (May 2020)
May 1, 2020
Hilary Rose, a sociologist, and Steven Rose, a neuroscientist, were two of the principal founders of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science in the late 1960s in London. They speak about their work as scientists and antiwar activists, particularly around the issue of Palestinian liberation.
And then, I think about war
- Issue:
- Vol. 72, No. 01 (May 2020)
May 1, 2020
A new poem by Linda Backiel.