A roundup of the most engaging recent pieces on the web read by the Pittsburgh Review of Books this week.
“A Blasphemous President” from The Atlantic
“Trump’s fury was predictable, but his assumption that Leo was merely offering political commentary revealed a lack of regard for Christian fundamentals.”
“In ‘Discipline,’ Larissa Pham Explores Predatory Art-World Mentorship” from Hyperallergic
“Autofiction has entered an adulthood similar to that of its typical characters: The young genre is increasingly in conversation with itself, creatively stuck, and primarily set in major American and European cities. Pham doesn’t necessarily break free from these confines, but Discipline still succeeds in revealing the ways in which unequal, painful intimacies shape the stories we tell about ourselves and how we are able to tell them.”
“Starting to Write Again After Unimaginable Tragedy” from LitHub
“Grieving and laughing may be a contradiction. But so is grieving and living and yet we all do it.”
“Pope Leo walks in the footsteps of St. Augustine in Hippo” from America Magazine
“The church in Algeria is mainly made up of foreigners, including its priests and bishops. This was evident at the Mass, where one could see many from the sub-Saharan regions of Africa in the congregation, including one young man from Uganda who is studying biology in Algeria and had travelled more than 800 miles to see the pope; he had also seen Francis when he visited his country.”
“Writing Amid Catastrophe” from Jewish Currents
“This moving expression of the act of writing as a rebuttal to imperial erasure recalled for me another critical juncture in Palestinian literary production, in the wake of the Nakba.”
“After Empires Die” from The Nation
“Jamaica Kincaid really hates England, and who could blame her?”
“Women’s Work is Devalued Under Capitalism” from Jacobin
“Women are overrepresented in low-paid work, care work, and unpaid labor. Their time, their bodies, and their emotional energy are resources for capital. Feminism cannot succeed without confronting the economic system that structures these inequalities.”
“Substack Has Revived the Serial Novel” from Compact
“If we want people to read novels in the era of shortened attention spans, then we need to find a form for the novel that meets the moment. In short, we need a revival of the serial novel.”
“Astronauts as Influencers” from Nautilus
“The four Artemis II astronauts aboard the Orion capsule for their 10-day trip around the moon and back appeared on a dizzying array of entertainment platforms. The stage of the journey that saw them slingshot around the moon, for example, streamed on NASA+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, and Roku.”
“Who Gets Guggenheims?” from Public Books
“Indeed, sociological research suggests that it is the people who already have considerable money, status, or both that are more likely to win grants, fellowships, and awards, especially more prestigious honors that enhance the cultural cachet of recipients.”
