A roundup of the most engaging recent pieces on the web read by the Pittsburgh Review of Books this week.
“The man who saw the future: the legacy of cultural theorist Mark Fisher” from The Guardian
“Revered for writing honestly, if not brutally, the academic turned polemicist was adept at encapsulating the public mood.”
“Vulgar Marxism, or Stop Me if You’ve Heard this Before” from the Los Angeles Review of Books
“Marx’s corresponding claim is that the 21st century saw culture become a key tool of politics on both the left and the right. The former, he argues, abandoned the principle that art should be inventive and resist convention, and instead adopted consumerism and ironic detachment, as illustrated by the hipsterdom of the aughts.”
“A Homecoming for Pope Leo?” from Commonweal
“In any case, I’m not looking for a hidden reason there might be tension between the Trump White House and the Vatican. There are plenty of good reasons right out in the open.”
“The New Religion of Beauty” from Der Spiegel
“It is, therefore, no wonder that the beauty and wellness industry has become as economically significant as the global oil and gas industry or the automotive industry. The difference is that the beauty industry is expected to see more growth in the coming decade than the auto industry.”
“Who is Blake Whiting?” from The American Scholar
“Whiting, as you have guessed, is neither historian nor human. His fake persona is harbinger of an alarming trend threatening disaster to academics and journalists alike.”
“AI Drafting My Stories? Over My Dead Body” from Wired
“AI-assisted writing is creeping into newsrooms under the guise of efficiency. But the trade-off may be more profound than publishers are willing to admit.”
“The Hidden Politics of German Carnival” from JSTOR Daily
“Carnival has been co-opted by—and used to promote the philosophies of—various movements, from the Protestant Reformation to National Socialism.”
“Eric Swalwell and the Persistent Problem of Silent Complicity” from Ms. Magazine
“It has also revived #MeToo era discussions about the roles and responsibilities of people around Rep. Swalwell—specifically his friends and colleagues. How could they not have known anything about what observers have described as an ‘open secret’”?
“History is Running Backwards” from The Atlantic
“Many of us thought that the world would get more democratic as it modernized, but for the past quarter century, we have seen a reversion to authoritarian strongmen.”
“Epic Fury: The Dark Art of Defense Tech” from ArtForum
“This new flood of venture-capitalist-as-influencer platforms has promoted and naturalized a distinctive military-industrial idiom that closely—and strangely—apes certain twentieth-century artistic tropes. Today’s most prominent founders and investors communicate in a visual grammar that shares a great deal with the aesthetic languages of Italian Futurism, primarily, but also of ‘return to order’ neoclassicism, World War II–era propaganda, and modernist museum branding.”
