Mag 05
“I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,” George Smiley said in John le Carré’s 1974 classic, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” “Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the center of things.” This concept of necessary, if …
Apr 12
The novelist, critic, poet and author, most recently, of a new translation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” relishes his defense of Philip Larkin: “Spraying cold water on a witch hunt is one of the duties that a critic should be ready to perform.” Continue reading the article in the original site
Set 13
By ADAM LANGER Published: September 12, 2011 Surely you’ve heard this story before. It’s about a charismatic high school teacher named Will. He’s in his 30s, and he’s comfortable around his students, so he doesn’t mind when some call him “dude” or “Mr. S.” He challenges their religious beliefs, politicizes the apolitical among them, helps …
Set 08
In his 2003 Oscar acceptance speech, Michael Moore denounced President Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Overnight he became the most hated man in America. In an exclusive extract from his new book, Here Comes Trouble, he tells of the bomb threats, bodyguards and how he fought back Michael Moore guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 September 2011 …
Lug 25
In Brazil as in many other parts of the world, Hannah Arendt’s thought has been frequently mentioned and assessed in juridical discussions (Lafer 1988; 1993). In fact, her work contains many passages in which she discusses juridical matters, often in close connection with questioning the perplexities engendered by totalitarianism. We may for example, take her …
Lug 01
Like his mother, Jennie Jerome, and his cousin-by-marriage Consuelo Vanderbilt, Winston Churchill’s Aunt Lily Hammersley was an American heiress whose fortune, it was hoped, would assist in bailing out the Churchill clan’s ever shaky finances. Hurriedly wed and brought to England as the newest Duchess of Marlborough, Lily arrived at Blenheim, the family’s vast, dilapidated …
Giu 29
BOSTON — Halfway around the world from Tahrir Square in Cairo, an aging American intellectual shuffles about his cluttered brick row house in a working-class neighborhood here. His name is Gene Sharp. Stoop-shouldered and white-haired at 83, he grows orchids, has yet to master the Internet and hardly seems like a dangerous man. Enlarge This …
Giu 27
Pages of history … reading an ancient Koranic manuscript in Chinguetti. Photograph: Remi Benali/Corbis The bone-dry wood creaks as the book opens at a page representing the course of the moon, framed by black balls and red crescents. The manuscript contains 132 pages of Arab astronomy bound in well-worn leather, a 15th-century treasure …
Giu 22
Haunting presence … Jacques Derrida, who coined the term hauntology, in a still from the documentary Derrida Hauntology is probably the first major trend in critical theory to have flourished online. In October 2006, Mark Fisher – aka k-punk – described it as “the closest thing we have to a movement, a zeitgeist”. …
Giu 15
Some associations with the name Rimbaud are very familiar: the highly romantic photograph taken a few months after he first settled in Paris, already at 17 the dedicatedly bohemian artist, with his pale blue eyes, distant gaze, thatch of hair, carelessly rumpled clothes; the startling, much interpreted declaration Je est un autre (“I is someone …