AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW最新文献

{"title":"The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear: Selected Poems by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky (review)","authors":"Kathryn Weld","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929674","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear: Selected Poems</em> by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Kathryn Weld (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>the country where everyone's name is fear: selected poems</small></em><br/> Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky<br/> Edited by Katie Ferris and Ilya Kaminsky<br/> Lost Horse Press<br/> https://losthorsepress.org/catalog/the-country-where-everyones-name-is-fear-selected-poems/<br/> 126 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>In 2017, Lost Horse Press established a dual-language series of poetry by important contemporary Ukrainian poets. <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear</em>, by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky, edited by Katie Ferris and Ilya Kaminsky, is the ninth volume in this series. These poems remind us of the role of the poet during times of war, in the particular context of the Ukrainian struggle for independence.</p> <p>The reader will remember that the Russo-Ukrainian War is now more than a decade old, having begun after the Revolution of Dignity (February 2014), which ousted the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and overthrew the Ukrainian government, and was immediately followed by the Russian annexation of the Crimea. During the eight subsequent years, Russia supported separatists in the Donbas region in armed conflict, naval attacks, and cyberwarfare. In February 2022, while Lost Horse Press was preparing for the book release, the war entered a phase of major escalation with the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia. The poems in <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear</em> bear witness to nearly a decade of war.</p> <p>The English portion of this dual-language publication is lean, featuring <strong>[End Page 106]</strong> only fifteen poems by Ludmila Khersonsky and fourteen by Boris Khersonsky. Nevertheless, this sampling is more than enough to reveal the stark desperation of current times in Ukraine, where \"explosions are the new normal, you grow used to them / stop noticing that you, with your ordinary ways are a goner.\" There are hints that this myopia is a human condition, even when a people are mired in crisis: \"against the background of lies, it's not apparent that we're also liars.\"</p> <p>How to describe this, and what is the weight of that role as witness? Ludmila, in \"How to Describe,\" tells us:</p> <blockquote> <p><span>a man who turned to the wall, weary of war.</span><span>Ear of the war: so much noise from a single man,</span><span>as if a whale was birthed into a common shell,</span><span>as if fear was trapped in the heart's punchbag.</span><span>A lonely human is dust.</span><span>Where to run from dust?</span></p> </blockquote> <p>An award-winning lyric poet and translator, Ludmila Khersonsky was born in Moldavia. She has published three volumes of poetry, a fourth is forthcoming from Arrowsmith Press. Her ","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141530946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"It's the Algorithm, Stupid!","authors":"Clare Birchall, Peter Knight","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929655","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> It's the Algorithm, Stupid! <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Clare Birchall (bio) and Peter Knight (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>alt-america: the rise of the radical right in the age of trump</small></em><br/> David Neiwert<br/> Verso<br/> https://www.versobooks.com/books/2801-alt-america<br/> 464 pages; Print, $19.95 <em><small>red pill, blue pill: how to counteract the conspiracy theories that are killing us</small></em><br/> David Neiwert<br/> Rowman & Littlefield<br/> https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633886261/Red-Pill-Blue-Pill-How-to-Counteract-the-Conspiracy-Theories-That-Are-Killing-Us<br/> 232 pages; Print, $28.95 <em><small>social warming: the dangerous and polarising effects of social media</small></em><br/> Charles Arthur<br/> Oneworld Publications<br/> https://oneworld-publications.com/work/social-warming/<br/> 352 pages; Print, $18.95 <em><small>the chaos machine: the inside story of how social media rewired our minds and our world</small></em><br/> Max Fisher<br/> Quercus Publishing<br/> https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/max-fisher/the-chaos-machine/9781529416367/<br/> 352 pages; Print, $29.00 <em><small>they knew: how a culture of conspiracy keeps america complacent</small></em><br/> Sarah Kendzior<br/> Flatiron Books<br/> https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/sarah-kendzior/<br/> 256 pages; Print, $29.99 <p><strong>[End Page 10]</strong></p> <p>What drives the visibility and the virality of conspiracy theories in the United States and elsewhere today, especially in the online world? In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of QAnon, and the storming of the Capitol, many writers—both academics and journalists—have addressed this question in a flood of books. Some have focused on the increasing political polarization and the lurch to right-wing populism. Others have argued that our innate psychological weakness is now being exploited by manipulators both domestic and foreign. Some have suggested that the rise of conspiracism is an inevitable consequence of the financial incentives, technological affordances, and the libertarian ethos of social media companies. Some have even insisted that these conspiracy theories—no matter how seemingly bizarre—are an understandable response to the normalization of corruption and conspiracy in US political life.</p> <p>The journalist David Neiwert has been covering right-wing violent extremism in the United States for over two decades. In <em>Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump</em> (2017) and <em>Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us</em> (2022) he charts the history of how the alt-right and its ideology of white nationalism came to influence contemporary American politics, becoming not only mainstream but, with Trump as the conspiracy-monger-in-chief in the White House, no longer stigmatized. H","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141507562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19 by Clare Birchall and Peter Knight (review)","authors":"Asbjørn Dyrendal","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929656","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19</em> by Clare Birchall and Peter Knight <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Asbjørn Dyrendal (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>conspiracy theories in the time of covid-19</small></em><br/> Clare Birchall and Peter Knight<br/> Routledge<br/> https://www.routledge.com/Conspiracy-Theories-in-the-Time-of-Covid-19/Birchall-Knight/p/book/9781032324999<br/> 248 pages; Print, $32.95 <p>The COVID-19 pandemic brought on a mass of conspiracist speculations. It also brought massive speculations about conspiracism and research on the same. Clare Birchall and Peter Knight's <em>Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19</em> is a masterful analysis of all three strands. A slim volume at two hundred pages, it manages to be encompassing, careful, nuanced, and sharply analytical.</p> <p>The book includes an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter, on the cultural and political contexts from which COVID conspiracy theories emerged, is follow by a chapter on the \"infodemic.\" Chapters 3 and 4 trace various COVID conspiracy theories over the first year of the pandemic, and chapters 5–7 discuss the features of COVID conspiracy theories, conspiracy entrepreneurs, and what Birchall and Knight call \"dis-info capitalism.\" This structure allows the authors, as they state, to \"visit and re-visit Covid-19 conspiracy theories, covering new ground each time\" using new perspectives, foci, methods, and contexts. The contexts also include history, as conspiracy speculations, even about COVID, did not start with Trump, his fans, or QAnon. Concerns involving causes of health and illness have long been sites of speculations about hidden evil actors. Allegations of conspiracy stretch from antisemitic rumors that plagues were caused by poisoned wells in the Middle Ages to modern miracle cures that the proverbial \"they\" allegedly do not want to release to the public. That a pandemic would release a mass of conspiracy narratives was thus easy to predict, and the World Health Organization was quick to warn about an \"infodemic\" following the pandemic.</p> <p>The concept of an \"infodemic\" has a certain immediate appeal, but it is analytically problematic and is treated as such in the book. In public communication <strong>[End Page 18]</strong> it was often pragmatically understood as \"fake news\" and conspiracy theories, and as such served as a warning about misinformation. The \"curb appeal\" of the concept thus relates to the topic of the book—the conspiracy theories. There were undoubtedly enough of those, but Birchall and Knight show that they constituted only a small percentage of the misinformation content produced on COVID.</p> <p>That conspiracist content was but a small part of the overall discussion is important, but the authors are never dismissive of conspiracist content","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"95 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141507563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum (review)","authors":"Michael Butter","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929657","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy</em> by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Michael Butter (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>a lot of people are saying: the new conspiracism and the assault on democracy</small></em><br/> Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum<br/> Princeton University Press<br/> https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691188836/a-lot-of-people-are-saying<br/> 232 pages; Print, $26.95 <p>Conspiracy theories are an exciting topic but often tedious to study. That is because conspiracy theorists usually go to great lengths to prove their claims. They analyze sources and secret communication, draw on eyewitness reports and make inferences, and are obsessed with details. In <em>Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism</em>, Augustin Barruel blames the Freemasons and Illuminati for orchestrating the French Revolution and provides footnotes on each of its several hundred pages; David Ray Griffin's <em>The New Pearl Harbor Revisited</em>, which claims that 9/11 was an \"inside job\" conducted by the US government, unfolds its argument in 250 pages, which are followed by 80 pages of notes. The first text was published in 1797, the second in 2008. This shows how stable the mode of conspiracist argumentation has remained over the centuries. It was not even affected by the stigmatization that conspiracy theories underwent after World War II in Europe and North America, as Katharina Thalmann has shown in a meticulously argued book reviewed by Todor Hristov in this issue. When conspiracy theories ceased being the commonly accepted explanation of events and began to be eyed suspiciously by the majority of people, and especially by epistemic authorities, their proponents were left with two options. They could either embrace their marginalization and articulate their allegations openly in a language replete with claims of hidden plots and evil designs, or they could veil that they were spreading conspiracy theories by pretending to be just asking questions. Both options, however, meant presenting lengthy arguments and getting bogged down in details.</p> <p>This way of presenting conspiracist allegations is what Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum call the \"old conspiracism.\" Their intriguing claim <strong>[End Page 22]</strong> is that in the United States in recent years it has largely been superseded by what they call \"the new conspiracism.\" Whereas the old conspiracism depended on evidence, the new one, they argue, thrives on repetition. An accusation is repeated over and over again, but no attempt is made to prove it. It is, in their memorable phrase, \"conspiracy without the theory.\" The claim is validated when it is repeated by people who reiterate, retweet, like, or forward it: \"If <em>a lot of peopl","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141507564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Alphabet by Henry Weinfield (review)","authors":"David M. Katz","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929675","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>An Alphabet</em> by Henry Weinfield <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> David M. Katz (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>an alphabet</small></em><br/> Henry Weinfield<br/> Dos Madres Press<br/> https://www.dosmadres.com/https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/an-alphabet-by-henry-weinfield/<br/> 68 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>In 1980, in his book <em>In the Sweetness of the New Time</em>, Henry Weinfield published \"Xerxes,\" a poem of heroic grandeur in which he incorrectly quotes a line from one of Edward Lear's nonsense alphabet books. Accompanied by an illustration of an angry-looking little king with an arrow raised in one hand and a scimitar in the other, Lear's poem correctly reads: <strong>[End Page 110]</strong></p> <blockquote> <p><span>X was once a great king Xerxes</span><span>Xerxy,</span><span>Perxy,</span><span>Turxy,</span><span>Xerxy,</span><span>Linxy, lurxy,</span><span>Great King Xerxes!</span></p> </blockquote> <p>Understandably, considering the regal ferocity of Lear's drawing, the young poet misquoted Lear's first line as \"X is for Xerxes, / the mad king.\" Acknowledging his error a half century later, Weinfield nevertheless uses the misquotation as the epigraph to his highly enjoyable new book of poems, <em>An Alphabet</em>, suggesting the personal evolution of poetic creativity as it may play out over a poet's lifetime. Indeed, there's a delightful feeling of completeness, of a road followed to its very end, radiating from the form Weinfield has chosen for this sequence of poems. Like a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or a how-to manual, an alphabet book also aspires to comprehensiveness. Yet, as the title suggests, this volume is \"an\" alphabet, not \"the\" alphabet—that is, one poet's take on written language. Because of the originality of its attack and the exemplary excellence of its versification, however, Weinfield's book deserves a place on the shelf next to more scholarly volumes on the art of poetry.</p> <p>In addition to surveying the alphabet as a whole, Weinfield unearths, through puns and rhymes, hidden meanings associated with the individual letters. Graphically spare, each letter of the alphabet carries with it a vast web of verbal associations, and his poems act as grids across which such meanings can meet and correspond or collide. While any letter can resonate in this way, the letter X seems an apt symbol for all the letters in Weinfield's personal alphabet. Rare and strange and beautiful, X represents the magic of written language as it first may be encountered by a child in a speller. But in more universal terms, X may mark the spot where language itself begins.</p> <p>In \"Xerxes,\" Weinfield envisioned a Romantic version of the Persian king: a young man kneeling before a rose. It is \"Xerxes the tenor / in Handel's Largo\" in a place of music and peace and solitude, rather than Xerxes t","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Surrealist Muse by Anne Whitehouse, and: Escaping Lee Miller by Anne Whitehouse, and: Frida by Anne Whitehouse (review)","authors":"Alan Steinfeld","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929681","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Surrealist Muse</em> by Anne Whitehouse, and: <em>Escaping Lee Miller</em> by Anne Whitehouse, and: <em>Frida</em> by Anne Whitehouse <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Alan Steinfeld (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>surrealist muse</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/surrealist-muse-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $9.00 <em><small>escaping lee miller</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/escaping-lee-miller-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $9.00 <em><small>frida</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/frida-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $10.00 <p>Anne Whitehouse's series on the women of surrealism provides a chronicle of the inner workings of three extraordinary women who emerged out of the surrealist art movement of the 1930s and 1940s. While surrealism sought to focus on the absurd, the fantastic, and the transhuman, the lives of Leonora Carrington, Lee Miller, and Frida Kahlo reflect the very real challenges of the human condition.</p> <p>Published by Ethel Zine and Micro Press, this exquisitely handcrafted book series, designed by Sara Lefsyk, is a collector's dream. Whitehouse's thought-provoking approach invites readers to delve into the personal struggles, triumphs, and contributions of these artists. In many ways, the exceptional lives of the three women she portrays can be characterized as \"surreal,\" marked by extreme physical suffering and emotional tribulations that set them apart from the ordinary women of their times.</p> <p>The situations of these lives reflect the sentiment of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote, \"Works of art always spring from those who have faced <strong>[End Page 148]</strong> the danger, gone to the very end of experience, to the point beyond which no human being can go.\" Indeed, in these concise biographical sketches Whitehouse sheds light on journeys \"no human being\" would dare to embark upon.</p> <p>Her approach to Carrington, Miller, and Kahlo adds a new layer of understanding to the surrealist movement, showing it as a response to the harsh realities of the world. Overall, Whitehouse is both engaging and insightful, providing a fresh perspective into the lives of extraordinary women. Each was a contributor to the surrealist movement equal to the widespread male-dominated acknowledgments that litter the art history books. For instance, Whitehouse accuses the surrealist movement of misogyny and the tendency to portray women as mere muses and symbols of mystical and erotic fantasies. She attributes this hostility to the surrealist men's love and admiration for each other. When Kahlo was invited to Paris by the movement's leader, André Breton, she was met with a rude reception and eventually found refuge with the painter Marcel Duchamp.</p> <p>The","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Commerce with Montaigne","authors":"Jeffrey R. Di Leo","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921772","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Commerce with Montaigne <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) </li> </ul> <p>In 1676, the Catholic Church put Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> on the <em>Index Librorum Prohibitorum</em>. According to the <em>New Catholic Encyclopedia</em> (2003), the index, \"established in 1557 by Pope Paul IV, was a list of books that Catholics were prohibited from reading on pain of excommunication,\" it continues, \"because they contained material considered dangerous or contrary to faith or morals.\" The list would continue as Catholic doctrine until 1966, when Pope Paul VI abolished it on the grounds that it was \"contrary to the teaching of Vatican II concerning freedom of inquiry.\"</p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Fig 1. <p>Replica of a card from the original Villanova University Library card catalog.</p> <p></p> <p>For those who doubt that this list meant very much before Vatican II abolished it, consider an exhibit from the Villanova University Library (Figure 1). Here we find a catalog card for an English translation of Montaigne's <em>Essays</em>, which is marked in italics \"On Church Index\" above the call number and author information. While professors could freely check out the <em>Essays</em>, students wanting to check it out \"had to report to the Library Director's office with a permission slip from their professor to request access to the book.\" The reason for its inclusion in the <em>Index</em> was apparently that it was contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, which dominated at the time and regarded animals as automata, whereas Montaigne regarded animals as capable of reason. The Catholic Church contended that Montaigne's doctrine on animal reason placed in peril the immortality of humans. Hence, almost three centuries later—and just a year before the summer of love—students at Villanova and presumably other Catholic universities in America needed a permission slip from their professors to check it out of the library. <strong>[End Page 1]</strong></p> <p>One wonders though how Catholic university professors in the 1960s came to the decision to allow—or deny—their students access to books such as Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> \"that Catholics were prohibited from reading on pain of excommunication.\" In addition, it is hard today not to think about such decisions in the context of zealous right-wing public library boards considering whether to allow—or deny—access to LGBTQ+ reading material. Whereas Vatican II eliminated the <em>Index</em> with the intention of freedom of inquiry, right-wing zealots are working hard today to reestablish a new version of it in public libraries across America. Nevertheless, it is still to be determined how comprehensive the <em>New Index Librorum Prohibitorum</em> will be—and if checking out Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> from your local public library will require p","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction by Bruce Robbins (review)","authors":"Robert T. Tally Jr.","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921801","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction</em> by Bruce Robbins <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Robert T. Tally Jr. (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>criticism and politics: a polemical introduction</small></em> Bruce Robbins<br/> Stanford University Press<br/> https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34344<br/> 272 pages; Print, $24.00 <p>Early in <em>Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction</em>, Bruce Robbins tells of the time when his daughter, at age seven or eight, was asked what her father did for a living, and she replied, \"Daddy is a criticizer.\" Robbins notes that this is basically accurate (both about him and his profession), and he then asserts that \"One point of this book is to explain to literary critics and interested others how and why our discipline criticizes and why such work is worth doing, even when it doesn't seem very nice.\"</p> <p>It might be best to approach <em>Criticism and Politics</em> first by focusing on its subtitle, which some readers might find a bit jarring. Attaching the idea of a polemic to that of an \"introduction\" produces a sort of estrangement effect, particularly as \"mere\" introductions to literary and cultural criticism over the years have mostly sought <em>to appear</em>, if not always <em>to be</em>, disinterested, even objective. Polemics, on the contrary, are always situated and engaged, coming as <strong>[End Page 153]</strong> they do from a particular position with respect to others in their domain, and the thrust of the discourse is normally <em>athwart</em> those in favor of the object of the polemic in question. And yet, as we frequently find, those who would appear disinterested in introducing an inherently political subject likely have their own political agendas, whether they care to admit it or not. The main thesis of <em>Criticism and Politics</em>, in fact, is that criticism <em>is</em> and <em>has always been</em> political, and hence that efforts to depoliticize criticism or to suggest that criticism could be practiced entirely outside of political considerations not only mischaracterize the project of criticism but also oppose it. As Robbins discusses at length, one can identify clear relationships between anti-critical forms of criticism, within academe and outside of it, and real political forces that endanger education, reinforce structures of inequality, promote a neoliberal economic order, and fan the flames of racist, nationalist, or otherwise exclusionary social movements. Under the circumstances, a self-consciously <em>polemical introduction</em> to the subject makes a good deal of sense.</p> <p>Robbins has been at this quite a while and is now unquestionably a leading authority on criticism and politics (and the politics of criticism). His first book, <em>The Servant's Hand: English Fiction from Below</em> (1986), is a goo","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"286 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Appalachian Voice Speaks for Ohio: A Conversation with Kari Gunter-Seymour","authors":"Renee H. Shea","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921799","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921799","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> An Appalachian Voice Speaks for Ohio<span>A Conversation with Kari Gunter-Seymour</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Renee H. Shea </li> </ul> <p>In June 2020, when Ohio governor Mike DeWine called Kari Gunter-Seymour to offer her the position of the state's poet laureate, she promised, \"I'm going to be lifting up my people. I'm going to be lifting up Appalachia.\" She has done that and far more as the author of three poetry collections: <em>A Place So Deep inside America It Can't Be Seen</em> (2020), <em>Serving</em> (2020), and <em>Alone in the House of My Heart</em> (2022). <em>Dirt Songs</em>, her fourth collection, is forthcoming in 2024. A ninth-generation Appalachian, Gunter-Seymour was awarded the Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship to edit and publish <em>I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing</em> (2022), the first anthology to focus exclusively on Ohio-based Appalachian teens and adults. She is also the founder and executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project, a literary, visual, and performing arts organization created to address discrimination against women in the Appalachian region. She holds a BFA in graphic design and an MA in photography from Ohio University.</p> <strong><small>renee h. shea</small></strong>: <p>What led you to apply for the position of poet laureate of Ohio?</p> <strong><small>kari gunter-seymour</small></strong>: <p>When that call came out just as I was finishing up my term as poet laureate of Athens County [Ohio], a whole lot of people got in touch with me. I hadn't planned to apply, but then when people who were close to me said, \"Think about the work you could do,\" I realized that this is my chance to continue working with folks who are recovering from addiction—something that's near and dear to me. If I have that title by my name—Kari Gunter-Seymour, Ohio poet laureate—I thought it would carry some weight and open up doors.</p> <p>Still, I certainly never thought I'd have a chance, because I am aware of the amazing talent in this state. But the laureate position to me is a position of service—and not everyone wants to serve. I was fortunate that <strong>[End Page 141]</strong> the governor was on board with my project, and his office has helped me to be able to actualize working with folks who are incarcerated, women in recovery, incarcerated teens, students all over our state in all kinds of situations.</p> <p>So that's the essence of what led me to decide I wanted the possibilities. It wasn't about thinking I'll get to go all over and read my poetry. I don't mean to be briggity, but I was already doing that. I was lucky to have acquaintances all over the state, so I was traveling and doing a good bit of reading my poetry. But as poet laureate, I have been given the privilege of going into the prisons and schools—specific places where I feel I can really make some ","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cormac McCarthy's Abendrot","authors":"David Cowart","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921807","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Cormac McCarthy's <em>Abendrot</em> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> David Cowart (bio) </li> </ul> <p>For this reader, convinced that he beheld in Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo the apex literati of our time (yes, yes, white males all), apocalypse took the form foretold when, on June 13, a third of that splendid asterism was swept from the firmament. One step ahead of death (\"this fell sergeant,\" as Hamlet says, so \"strict in his arrest\"), McCarthy had seen the last of his twelve novels into print only last December. He died scant weeks before his ninetieth birthday, which he would have observed on July 20. As William Butler Yeats supplied one of McCarthy's best-known titles, one may well, on this occasion, invoke again the opening of Auden's elegy for the great Irish poet: \"Earth, receive an honored guest.\"</p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution <p></p> <p>In Boswell's <em>Life of Samuel Johnson</em>, the great lexicographer recalls being at Oxford and encountering \"an old gentleman\" who told him: \"Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.\" I am haunted by this anecdote because it seems to characterize reading itself as \"no country for old men\"—to augur an end to a lifetime's joy in that pastime. And alas, though I read much of the night and go north in summer, I am less routinely transported by the books I dive into. Nor dare one indulge too frequently in the touchstones of yore (the last paragraphs of \"The Dead,\" the first of <em>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</em>, the fifth chapter of <em>Urne-Buriall</em>), lest they become filmed over with a blighting <strong>[End Page 178]</strong> familiarity. I could always take comfort, however, in the knowledge that new writing by a Cormac McCarthy (and, as intimated above, one or two of his contemporaries) could restore the wonted, primal delight.</p> <p>Like most of his eventual readerdom, I came late to McCarthy. Friends had thrust copies of <em>Suttree</em> (1979) and <em>Blood Meridian</em> (1985) into my hands, but for me, as for so many others, it was <em>All the Pretty Horses</em> (1992) that blew my hair back and made me, more or less immediately, an acolyte. It met the criterion famously articulated by Kafka: a book should be the ax to the frozen sea within us. Mythic yet countermythic, the novel ends with its hero, John Grady Cole, displaying the thigh wound that links him to Odysseus, Jesus, and the Fisher King. As this roll call of archetypes implies, here was a flawless composite of quest narrative and, in all its permutations, romance: chivalric Western, love story, splendid adventure tale, the very essence of escape from the everyday. But all of it anchored, in the end, by that iron law of the McC","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"2016 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}