by Tom Abi Samra. I thought it was an earthquake, only for the shaking to be followed by a loud blast. Trained during the 2006 Lebanon-Israel War, I could tell it wasn’t a bomb, at least not of the type to which we’ve grown accustomed.
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All articles filed in Critique
Monsters of the University
by Kyle Kern. In his regular bi-monthly opinion column in the Washington Post, president of Purdue University and former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels defended his decision to re-open the university’s campus this fall, stating that failing to do so “would be not only anti-scientific but also an unacceptable breach of duty.”
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Why Charlottesville?
by Shane Burley. White polos, pressed khakis, tiki torches, and chants of “you will not replace us” serve as shorthand for a trauma now seared into our memories. The largest openly neo-Nazi gathering in years, the Unite the Right rally that marred Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12th, 2017, is now a defining symbol of the escalating threat posed by newly emboldened white nationalists.
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Endemic to Alienation
by David. A Banks. In The Best of Both Worlds the two-part Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that spans the third and fourth seasons, Captain Picard is kidnapped by the Borg and transformed into Locutus, a spokesperson for their collective to communicate with what they call our “individualistic society.” Picard’s assimilation into the Borg’s cybernetic hive-mind also means they know all his tactics and how his crew thinks.
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Alienation For My Peers
by Tongo Eisen-Martin. Kids are still in cages, but hegemonic parables remind us: we choose between presidents, therefore we are. Along with other fainter tantrums of consumerism that white society does its best bragging with, the news of impeachment possibilities makes us feel good and properly entertained.
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The Pest As Form
by Maru Pabón. As the maintenance of any given state of affairs depends largely on the ability to keep pests under control, animals are pulled into the category in relation to the processes of labor they disturb; the leaves they munch on, the shit they spread. If locusts troubled agrarian societies, it was because they devastated the production of goods around which the economy was centered.
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Scenes From a Failed State
by Caleb Brennan. “Tough guy, huh?” asks the officer. “You having fun?” goads his partner. As his knee crushes the windpipe of his victim, his body language is stern and unfeeling, as if taking the position is some sort of burden. “He’s not responsive right now, bro!” one pedestrian says. “Check for a pulse,” says another. A cop with nothing to say turns away, expressing his indifference with his posture.
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Labor
by Maximillian Alvarez. “Someday, perhaps, it will be a joy to remember even these things.” Aeneas offers these words to his weary shipmates when things seem to be at their lowest. It’s not a promise. Nothing is guaranteed. Someday, perhaps.
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“Murder Most Foul:” A Boomer Laureate’s Conspiracy Anthem
by A.M. Gittlitz. One Friday this March, you might have noticed a weird trending item about Bob Dylan releasing a nearly 20-minute new song about the JFK assassination. You might have listened to it for a few seconds and turned it off, or left it running and walked away to make coffee, returning to find one of his classics autoplaying.
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Gone With the Wind and the Cultural Politics of Trumpism
by Jon Greenaway. At a recent rally, Donald Trump (in one of his typically free-associative speeches) decided to complain about Bong Joon-Ho’s latest film, Parasite, which took home Best Picture at the Oscars. To Trump, this was something of a distaster.
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