Iowa Requiem, 2018
Peter Carroll’s visit to Perry, Iowa gives no warning of sudden violence that occurred there this week, except for feelings of despair that might afflict a troubled young man with nowhere to go.
books
Are We in the Grip of an ‘American Cultural Revolution’?
Current Affairs
Reviewing the new book by Christopher Rufo, architect of the right’s crusade against “critical race theory.”
food
The Vegan School Lunch
Ambrook Research
In the popular imagination, vegan school lunch may seem like the exclusive provenance of big cities like New York, but the tide appears to have shifted significantly in much of the country.
tv
Apple TV+’s “The Buccaneers” Ruins Edith Wharton and Fails History
Autostraddle
This approach to period pieces does not only erase historical racism and homophobia. It also erases our joy. Accurate historical representation and less trauma in stories about marginalized people are not opposing goals.
poetry
Trillion Dollar Question
War remains headline news, as ever, perhaps distracting public attention from the Big Bang, so says poet Gerry Sloan.
books
Achille Mbembe: Necropolitics
Critical Legal Thinking
Reviewer Pele says author Mbembe defines “necropolitics” “as the political making of spaces and subjectivities in an in-between of life and death.” Necropolitical practices have their origins in colonialism and the slave plantation.
food
Biden Is Paying Growers To Replace Farmworkers With Bracero Contract Labor
Truthout
Under the new visa pilot program, the administration is prioritizing growers’ profits over farmworkers’ rights.
film
The New Willy Wonka Prequel Is Fun, but It Doesn’t Hold a Candle to Its 1971 Predecessor
Jacobin
In Wonka, Timothée Chalamet dons the eccentric chocolatier’s purple jacket in yet another film adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This one is playful and harmless, but it can’t touch the 1971 original movie.
tv
Let Bradley Cooper’s Maestro Be the Death of the Biopic
Jacobin
In Maestro, Bradley Cooper plays famed conductor Leonard Bernstein but leaves out the complicating — and fascinating — real-life details for a more streamlined, tearjerking product. It’ll doubtlessly do well at the Oscars.
books
Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity
Mobilizing Ideas
This book explores how social identities of various kinds have spurred the divisiveness of our politics, and how politics has itself become a kind of social identity.
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