A roundup of the most engaging recent pieces on the web read by the Pittsburgh Review of Books this week.
“How to Tell the Story of Extraction in Appalachia” from Hyperallergic
“During one trip, she learned that on February 26, 1972, a coal slurry dam collapsed in the region and released an estimated 20-foot (~6 m) tidal wave of black sludge that swept down the 15-mile (~24 km) valley, killing 125 people and leaving 4,000 homeless. The mining company called it an ‘act of God,’ and left the land toxic for decades.”
Chosen by Paul Beer
“Intellectuals Are Ordinary” from The Hedgehog Review
“Criticism’s tragic truth is that the original moment is always gone. Aesthetic experience is more ‘verbal’ than ‘noun-like,’ a continuity of movement and flux rather than a static thing, and
interpretation can seem to will flux into a very unlifelike solidity. Tacos grow cold when you treat them this way. They are not primarily a receptacle for meaning. They are primarily delicious.”
Chosen by Elias Fox
“Mexistentialism” from Aeon
“After all, there is a reason why my father thinks that ‘nothing is certain’, and it has nothing to do with something he’s read or something someone’s told him. It has everything to do with the life he’s lived.”
Chosen by Kathryn Anne Langley
“Reality bites: why the wildest TV shows of the 2000s are haunting us now” from The Guardian
“’Gen Z wants to get in a time machine and fix the errors of 20 years ago,’ says Kristen Warner, a Cornell University media studies professor. ‘There was no roadmap. Reality TV was a wild west, and people were just doing the most outlandish things to keep it going.’”
Chosen by Suzy Liss
“The European Myth of Indigenous ‘Savages’” from LitHub
“To Europeans, the binary of civility and savagery paralleled that of Christianity and paganism. What Europeans criticized as Indian disorder, Indians defined as freedom.”
Chosen by Jinze Mao
“See How Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ Inspired Centuries of Artists – From
Caravaggio to René Magritte” from Smithsonian Magazine
“Things are morphed into other forms. People morph into other people. It’s about the force of nature and giving an explanation to our passions, to our sadness, to our fears. That’s what makes it so intensely human.”
Chosen by Maggie Hua
“Why we’d rather watch strangers tidy than do it ourselves” from Salon
“Rebrands are always a compromise: Staking a claim to a new trend means disrespecting the generations-old custom it co-opts; tethering well-being to domestic productivity re-inscribes narrow
gendered beliefs.”
Chosen by Sofia Johnson
“The Making of the Deportation Machine” from the Boston Review
“One local observer presciently remarked, ‘Think of the consequences. . . . what civil and human rights could be violated without anyone even knowing it?’”
Chosen by Sabikun Mazumder
“Maria Stepanova’s ‘The Disappearing Act’ and Why It’s Essential” from the Chicago Review of Books
“The Disappearing Act is one of those gems of literature that demands context to fully understand its greatness.”
Chosen by Rahaf AlMubarak
“Survivor Has Become a Bleak Mirror of Modern Capitalism” from Jacobin
“For twenty-six years, CBS’s Survivor has positioned itself as a grand experiment in traditional American meritocracy. Any individual who was smart, hardworking, and resilient enough could win the day. But in recent years, the game has evolved into something far more unjust. Indeed, Survivor has become a
simulation of the economic system we experience every day.”
Chosen by Jennie Tian
