Panic Mode: The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld
Cyclical patterns of journalism notwithstanding, Gladstone sees this moment as uniquely concerning.
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Posts Tagged: Barack Obama
Rumpus Original Fiction: La Yegüita
The hit below the belt worked. A jab like that was the quickest way to protect one’s denial.
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Rumpus Exclusive: “Sacred Stories”
All anyone really wants is to be seen and heard, and yet we avoid seeing and hearing others every day.
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Trauma as Inheritance: Adam P. Frankel’s The Survivors
The survivor is left to ponder whom he has become.
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The Lenses We Can’t See: A Conversation with Howard Axelrod
Howard Axelrod discusses his new book, THE STARS IN OUR POCKETS.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #170: Richard Blanco
“I guess you could say that engineering paved the road to poetry for me, pardon the pun.”
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Cowboy or Terrorist? Harney County and the Trump Presidency
One person’s freedom to do anything they want can mean the absolute negation of another’s freedom.
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The Woman Behind the Curtain Pulling the Levers: Talking with Zinzi Clemmons
Zinzi Clemmons on What We Lose, representations of blackness, and life’s influences on writing.
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What to Read When You Want Your Kids to Grow Up to Be Good
A list of picture books to create meaningful conversations with kids about the way America is now and the ways we hope to make it better.
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Transgressive and Unruly Women: Talking with Anne Helen Petersen
Anne Helen Peterson discusses her new book, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman, her writing process, and academia.
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There Is Simply No Time for This: Whose Streets? and Civil Rights Cinema
It is unlikely I will see the US justice system evolve toward an egalitarian ideal in my lifetime. But Whose Streets? does offer a clearly visible North Star.
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Where You Put It on the Line: A Conversation with Mychal Denzel Smith
Mychal Denzel Smith discusses his debut nonfiction book Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, how the activist space has changed in recent years, and who he is writing for.
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The Big Idea: Bill McKibben
Journalist and environmental activist Bill McKibben discusses whether our environmental crisis can be improved under our new political administration, climate change denial, and manifestations of resistance.
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 11): “Skinhead”
Using dramatic monologue, Smith unmasks the skinhead’s anger to fend off threats to his way of life.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Tell Me Something Good
I need to feel that I can be a woman and be black in this present cultural climate.
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Readers Report: The Emperor’s New Clothes
A collection of short pieces written by Rumpus readers pertaining to the subject of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
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Binary States of America: A Letter to Obama
In the end, although I wanted you to be more like Charles Bronson or Malcolm or Luke Cage, I am very proud to have witnessed your historic presidency—the successes, and even the disappointments.
...moreCook the Books
Cook’s portraits are usually accompanied by texts distilled from interviews she conducts with her subjects (afterward, she says, because she prefers the shoot itself to remain as meditative as possible). This provides her, and her audience, with a verbal layer of insight not normally accessible to photographers. In the Los Angeles Review Of Books, Michael Kurcfeld […]
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Choosing Stories: On Partisanship, the Media, & American Ideology in 2016
What kind of change do I want, and what does fighting for it look like, today?
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Letters to Laura from a McDonald’s in Brooklyn
Tonight my loneliness is infinite and I could eat dinner or dance with my limbs wild because there is no gravity keeping me grounded.
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The Rumpus Interview with Ben H. Winters
Ben H. Winters discusses his new novel Underground Airlines about an America where the Civil War never took place, writing speculative fiction, and modern racism.
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Angela Flournoy
My ambition is personal. I don’t think I need to succeed so that the race can succeed.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Bill Cosby’s Faux Legacy
Bill Cosby was never the man, the icon, the protector and illustrator of black culture, the guide, the genius we have created in our minds.
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Midnight in the Century
…today’s poetry apologists for the Iraq war just keep repeating their intelligence error odes. Wouldn’t it be better, however, if they would address the horror of the failed effort in Iraq?
...moreSatirical America
Has the US turned into a satire of itself? Consider how quickly Congress has gone from championing Freedom Fries to chastising President Obama’s absence from the Paris peace march. Over at the LA Times, David L. Ulin looks at why Americans are choosing irony over satire: Is it coincidence, then, that the rise of postmodernism […]
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The Pleasure (and Privilege) of Indignation
Indignation clicks on in moments of perceived injustice. Unchecked, it rolls quickly out of control, gaining momentum at the expense of perspective.
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The Week in Greed #15: Seven Unpopular Truths About Last Night’s Great Debate
1. Mitt Romney convincingly portrayed a sympathetic human being.
...moreThe Post-Fact-Check Campaign
For weeks now, the Romney campaign has run ads claiming that President Obama has gutted the work requirement for welfare recipients. The response has varied. Fact checkers Politifact and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler have called this attack what it is–a lie. That’s unusual for a press corps which generally prefers to act as if […]
...moreSame-Sex Marriage Roundup
To almost no one’s surprise, last night North Carolina became the 31st state to ban same-sex marriage. This is the second time North Carolina has done this–the first time was just a state law; this one was a Constitutional amendment. This Constitutional amendment, though, does more than simply ban same-sex marriage. It cancels out all […]
...moreThe Dress Doesn’t Make the Priest
I am going to tell you my favorite story of how a flower acquired its name. It’s the story of the ranunculus.
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