TORCH: An Alien, Ineligible for Participation
That a bumbling demagogue would be able to take this institutional racism and weaponize it is, then, not really a surprise. The seeds for this hate were planted a long time ago. ...more
Posts Tagged: Iraq War
Libraries Are the Real Punk Rock
Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom. ...more
There Is No Answer: Draw Your Weapons by Sarah Sentilles
As Sentilles makes clear, she is against the wars the United States is currently involved in, and war in general, but she’s critical of what that means. ...more
Home Is Here
There is no singular Muslim story, no definitive identity for the entire religion. [...] Here, four women discuss what it's like to be a minority in America in 2017, post-9/11 and post-Trump. ...more
Unbridled Power in All Its Majestic Terror: Will Bardenwerper’s The Prisoner in His Palace
As we begin our own Age of the Strongman, Hussein’s almost effortless manipulation—of soldiers expecting exactly that behavior—shows how susceptible we all might be to the sheer force of a big personality. ...more
The Mirror’s Shards
In the face of colossal and destructive political lies, we need a more nuanced understanding of the world than simply truth versus lie. ...more
The Rumpus Interview with Micah Perks
Micah Perks talks about her new novel, What Becomes Us, America’s cultural and mythical heritage, and why every novel is a political novel. ...more
This Week in Books: Civilianized: A Young Veteran’s Memoir
Welcome to This Week in Books, where we highlight books just released by small and independent presses. Books have always been a symbol for and means of spreading knowledge and wisdom, and they are an important part of our toolkit in fighting for social justice.
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The Rumpus Interview with Whitney Terrell
Whitney Terrell discusses war, gender, and fiction vs. reality in his new novel, The Good Lieutenant, about a female soldier in Iraq. ...more
The Rumpus Interview with Garrard Conley
Garrard Conley, author of the new memoir Boy Erased, discusses growing up in the deep South, mothers, writing for change, and political delusions. ...more
War Narratives #6: The Rumpus Interview with Phil Klay
When you’re writing fiction, you can follow your own ignorance. You can write something and realize how flawed you are. ...more
War Narratives #5: Surge
But those who subscribe to the Surge narrative have to work very hard to choose and order their supporting facts. ...more
War Narratives #4: Meet the Civilians
Each character achieves independence in his own way, but independence winds up looking a lot like loneliness. ...more
War Narratives #3: The Rumpus Interview with Matt Gallagher
Matt Gallagher on blogging during his time in the Army, his memoir Kaboom and forthcoming novel Youngblood, and what makes for good literary fiction about wartime. ...more
War Narratives #2: Trauma Writing
[I]f we don’t explore wartime trauma in literature, we will never understand war’s impact in personal or social terms; never understand the incredible variety of responses to trauma, with all its nuances and exceptions. ...more
Rapid Fire
Stanton re-gathered himself, still wearing a smile after being shot in the face, and went back to work. ...more
The Rumpus Interview with Elliot Ackerman
Elliot Ackerman discusses his debut novel Green on Blue, fighting with the Marine Corps in the Second Battle of Fallujah, and being labeled as a journalist . ...more
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Tom Sleigh
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Tom Sleigh about his new book, Station Zed,, how reportage and the surreal can combine inside a poem, and secularizing the mysteries of death, redemption, and resurrection. ...more
The Rumpus Interview with Brian Turner
Brian Turner discusses his new memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country, the Iraq War, poetry and prose, and his family's long history of serving in the military. ...more
This Week in Short Fiction
On Wednesday evening, Phil Klay’s Redeployment won the National Book Award for fiction, making it the first short story collection to win the award since Andrea Barrett’s Ship Fever in 1996. That’s 18 years. But what’s maybe more startling is that the collection, which takes multiple perspectives of people involved in and returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stands nearly alone as a fictional account that has risen to the national level of attention since the war in Afghanistan began in 2003.
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The Sunday Rumpus Fiction: Chips
Emily Gray Tedrowe, author of the forthcoming novel Blue Stars, exploring the complexities of the Iraq War through the families left behind, debuts a powerful new story set in Iraq. ...more
X. My Soldier, Iraq, and Contract Marriage
The incinerator burned amputated body parts. It sat immediately next to the barracks in Baghdad. ...more
The Iraq War in Fiction
...more“Fiction is, of course, serving rearguard here; the last decade has seen Iraq War films, poetry collections, documentaries, and non-fiction books too numerous to list, but part of what’s appealing about examining American Iraq War fiction now is that there isn’t that much yet.
Readers Report: Magic
A collection of short pieces written by Rumpus readers pertaining to the subject of “Magic.” ...more
Albums of Our Lives: Moxy Früvous’s Bargainville
What did I turn to when I needed to channel my frustration with this corporatized Republican state against which I could only kick my small angry feet? The music of Gen-Xers from another country. ...more
First-Class Guilt
But I had deployed only once to Iraq. When so many others, including friends of mine, had suffered two, three, four, five, or more deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, why should I be the one enjoying the comfort of flying first-class? ...more
“Do Take Every Opportunity to Tell ‘The Army Story'”
...more“Here are some of the things you need to know.” Gooding handed Pilley a card, laminated to slip smoothly into and out of his wallet, with a bulleted list of do’s and don’ts.
Pilley stared at the card like it had the answers to the algebra final exam.
An Internet Revolutionary
Julian Assange may have more sidekicks than we know of.
You can read about how Bradley Manning, a gender-questioning soldier, came to subvert the American military’s authority over information regarding the war in Iraq. He has simultaneously earned the title of WikiLeaks hero and U.S.
...moreA Conversation with a Soldier
Note: All names have been changed.
Major Mark Ross is currently home from Iraq. He has had two tours of duty and will redeploy in a year. He knows he suffers from PTSD and that returning to battle is unhealthy, but wants go back, feels he needs to go back.
...morePolitics Sunday
Remember the Wikileaks video depicting the killing of twelve people, including two children and a journalist, in Iraq? Well, one of the soldiers responsible has written a formal letter of apology. He also claims that when he expressed regret and sought counseling after the incident, he was told, “Don’t be a pussy.”
It’s like Star Wars for mosquitoes, and Bill Gates wants it to help end malaria.
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