FORTHCOMING Fall 2021
This is a time of fascism. Beyond actual ruling governments, fascist movements have mobilized openly in virtually all of the Western countries where so-called liberal democratic government supposedly prevails—Australia, Canada, England, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, the United States—to name only a few. In the US, of course, the figure of Trump has provided a concentration[…]
Imprint: Dead Letter Office
Published: 07/29/2021
There is indeed a “miracle” in the 1970 film Wanda. This film has survived, despite decades of neglect, to emerge into the fuliginous light of an era that may just be ready to strain at grasping its harsh and brutal truths — truths that reveal the imbrication of the psychic in the social and the[…]
Imprint: Brainstorm Books
Published: 06/18/2020
Animal Emotions: How They Drive Human Behavior gives a concise overview of ancient mammalian emotions deeply rooted in the human brain. Jaak Panksepp, a world-renowned neuroscientist, dedicated his life career to the study of mammalian emotions and he carved out seven distinct emotional systems he called seeking, lust, care, and play (positive emotions), and fear,[…]
Published: 11/19/2019
In 2008, JH Phrydas wrote a story about how bodies talk without words. He wanted the story to not just describe the silent ritual of nonverbal communication but to perform it. The interaction would be visceral – the exchange melancholic, yet full of lust. He wanted words to retain the unsayable: the subtle movements of[…]
Imprint: Dead Letter Office
Published: 07/18/2019
What do we do when we read? Reading can be an act of consumption or an act of creation. Our “work reading” overlaps with our “pleasure reading,” and yet these two modes of reading engage with different parts of the self. It is sometimes passive, sometimes active, and can even be an embodied form. The[…]
Published: 04/23/2020
We are living through the wrack of the White Male. As the compact between social hierarchy, inherited privilege, and race (reinforced by gender and other normative categories) shows signs of buckling, his rage and resentment threaten us all. For he is a thing possessed: possessed by his own love of possession, and born to a[…]
Imprint: Brainstorm Books
Published: 09/19/2017
Any social and political arrangement depends on acceptance. If a substantial part of a people does not accept the authority of its rulers, then those can only remain in power by means of force, and even that use of force needs to be accepted to be effective. Gramsci called this acceptance of the socio-political status[…]
Published: 08/29/2017
Creep Listed as a Finalist for a 2018 Literary Lambda Award (Gay Memoir)! Creeps surround us, seemingly everywhere. People creep up on each other both on the streets and online, with digital technologies vectoring a lot of cyber-stalking. It’s so easy to spy on people that “creep catching” has even become a form of news[…]