Columns
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Keep Minor Characters Minor
At the Guardian, Charlotte Jones takes issue with the recently announced Pride and Prejudice sequel fleshing out the life of Mary Bennett—a character whose neglect is central to Austin’s plot: The singularity of Elizabeth Bennett, after all – the reason…
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What’s Better Than Crystal Skulls?
Join the debate—what’s going on with all the crystal skulls? At disinfo, Judy Hall investigates: In talking about crystal skulls, departures from “truth” inevitably occur. But what is truth? Just because the origins of a skull are dubious does not…
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Covers and Cultural Appropriation
It’s been a major issue since American popular music first expanded its sonic territory from traditional country and folk songs: the cultural appropriation of sounds, and even entire pieces, that became more marketable (and thus lucrative) once they were performed by…
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This Week in Short Fiction
When The Bennington Review re-launched this past April after thirty years, its first issue packed a table of contents studded with prize-winning authors and exciting emerging voices. This week, to our good fortune, the biannual print publication has made several…
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Fappetizers
When does food porn become a problem? For The Millions, Davey Davis looks at the spread of the pornographic sensibility to Instagram cuisine: The cumshot is replicated in Instagram food porn, not with the actual consumption of the food but rather…
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Mandarin Imperial
Growing up, I understood my father through observation, and I suspect that he understood me much the same way. I liked to think our love was purer that way. Like two stray dogs who found each other and are blessed…
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By the People, for the People
At Guernica, Tana Wojcznick unpacks Shakespeare’s lesser-known and often-misread play, Coriolanus, to bring us s its timely political warning about populism and democracy: It’s no accident that Coriolanus is not a favorite in America, where it’s rarely included in the…
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Notable Chicago: 8/19–8/25
Friday 8/19: Head to the Uptown Arts Center to hear local author Louise LeBourgeois read in conjunction with Are We Not of Interest to Each Other, a series of paintings by Rick Sindt and Gregory Deddo. 7 p.m., free. If…
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The Chosen One
Colson Whitehead’s new novel, The Underground Railroad, was announced as an Oprah’s Book Club selection on the day of its release. Speaking to Michelle Dean in the Guardian, Whitehead discusses his reaction to the news: “I called her back and she said:…
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Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be
We’ve all lent a book to someone and never gotten it back—and most of us have probably been on the other end of that exchange as well. For Read It Forward, Jonathan Russell Clark writes a manifesto against the somewhat sacred…
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Child’s Play
Not a day goes by that there isn’t some new study on how children’s brains work and what kind of media they should be consuming, With all the scientifically backed books out there now, it’s good to also have some…
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The Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Barbara Berman reviews Selected Poems of Edna St Vincent Millay today in Rumpus Poetry.