The latest in fiction: Max Rachimburg shares “The Law Mine,” a parable about the prevailing order. Is the law objective, divine, derived from nature? Or is it something we make?
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The Zone
Poet Rodrigo Toscano’s “The Zone” explores the entangled processes of imperialism, nation-building, and literary culture across the western hemisphere.
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The Capitol Rioters and Punitive State Power
Shane Burley reflects on the Capitol insurrection and the federal investigation’s reliance on the public.
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2021: Year in Review
Protean was honored to feature the work of dozens of talented writers, poets, and artists this year, both in print and online. Here’s a selection of our publications from 2021.
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A Hospitable World
Poet Alex Bucik’s “A Hospitable World” denaturalizes the familiar by revealing the “work / of the same invisible hand / that plants the public gardens every spring / and kills the vagrants in their sleep.”
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Elves in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Lyta Gold examines the fairy-tale figure of the elf. Recurring in separate cultures—in fiction, in folklore, and in symbology—elves signify far more than the fantastical..
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Erasing Tejas
Poet Sebastián H. Páramo’s “Erasing Tejas” explores displacement and dispossession throughout Texas history, set against a backdrop of ongoing climate catastrophe.
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Dead Man Running
“If anything, Levon Manzie seemed to campaign harder after he died.” Ryan Zickgraf reports from Mobile, AL with the story of an attempt to elect a deceased councilman: a racist plot to make the largely Black city majority-white.
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ALL THE TV SHOWS ARE ABOUT COPS
To thank our new Patrons, we’re republishing an incredible poem from our third print issue: Hanif Abdurraqib’s “ALL THE TV SHOWS ARE ABOUT COPS.”
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Review: Exterminate All the Brutes and How To Become a Tyrant
Two docu-series, “Exterminate All the Brutes” and “How to Become a Tyrant,” exemplify a “poetic” materialism and stale liberal idealism, respectively. Ilan Benattar holds them both up to the light.
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