Protean was honored to feature the work of over 130 talented writers, poets, and artists this year, both in print and online. Here’s a small selection of our most-read publications from 2021.
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CRITIQUE, ESSAYS, & NEWS ANALYSIS
From Amelie Daigle, an examination of the psychological and social effects of infrastructure—trees, parks, playgrounds—and who gets to benefit from them.
Alex Skopic revealed yet another facet of the evils of mass incarceration: denying prisoners even the small comforts of reading.
Devin Thomas O’Shea dove into the farcical criminality of the Anheuser-Busch brewery empire.
Rami Soudah offered examples of how the struggle of the Palestinian people has inflected popular Middle Eastern music.
KJ Shepherd showed how statistics misrepresent the homelessness crisis.
C.M. Lewis analyzed how austerity prepared the ground for India Walton’s win in Buffalo.
Lupita Limón Corrales on pandemic upheavals in L.A., the cold logics of real estate, and remaining rooted in a time of displacement.
Moral Calculations: Pandemic Coverage Obscures Individual Risk and Social Harm
Epidemiologists Abigail Cartus, Justin Feldman, and Seth J. Prins dismantled a misleading and inexpert COVID article—a popular format in The Atlantic .
Caitlin Myers gave us a glimpse into the slow tragedy of Knoxville, TN’s pandemic failures, made worse by its wrestling superstar mayor Glenn Jacobs, otherwise known as Kane.
John Tormey took the measure of hard labor’s tax on the body.
Lyta Gold wrote on the symbolism in centuries of elven folklore.
REVIEWS
Interrogating the ‘Crisis’ of Migration: A Review of Harsha Walia’s Border & Rule
An incisive review of the politics of exclusion in Harsha Walia’s Border & Rule from Sohel Sarkar.
Shane Burley pilloried noted charlatan Andy Ngo’s execrable book and his signature blend of fraudulence, malevolence, and incompetence.
See the rest of our reviews and interviews to read the work of so many other talented writers.
FICTION
A gently beautiful vision of African socialism from Ani Kayode Somtochukwu.
The arrival of an angel named Matt confounds the townspeople of Carl Harris’s comic imagination.
Lucy Zhang’s “Outgrowth” brings together the dreamlike and the biological.
POETRY
We were pleased to host this conversation between Jamal Rashad and Richard Hamilton.
Fargo Tbakhi’s “OF” confronted the occupation of Palestine.
Margaret Randall wrote with two exquisite poems, “Still Life, Winter 2021” and “I Pick Away.”
Leijia Hanrahan’s “RAÚL CASTRO LAUGHS IN HAVANA” retold a playful dream of the Cuban revolution.
Many thanks to these and all the other incredible poets we published this year.
FROM THE PRINT EDITION
Kim Kelly remembered her grandfather, lost to workplace hazards, and all others who have been subjected to the same by cost-cutting and management indifference.
Writing in early 2021, Luke O’Neil spoke to carrying on amidst ambient injustice—of the pandemic, and of American life.
A piece from our second issue that was released online this year. Matt Sekellick traced the linkages between hoarding and consumer capitalism.
Hanif Abdurraqib contributed the deeply powerful poem “ALL THE TV SHOWS ARE ABOUT COPS.”
Read our print editions from many more incisive essays, poems, and original works of art.
This is only a very small selection of the pieces that we put out over the course of 2021. We’re immensely grateful to all of our contributors—those appearing on this list and elsewhere. And we’d like to thank all of our readers and subscribers for the support that allows us to keep publishing radical literature and art. – The Protean Collective ♦
