If only someone had made a great film about the innate bottomless nihilism of online life, where the ravenous search for depraved stimulation hollows you out, and erases everything human in you...if only... libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

read the essay here libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

RSVP here luma.com/4odso0ig

Join Morten Høi Jensen and @celestemarcus.bsky.social on Zoom, Tuesday, September 30th at 12 PMEST/6PM CST to discuss Celeste's essay from the recent issue "The Other Obliteration: A Report from the West Bank"

We're hiring! For the full listing: libertiesjournal.com/assistant-pu...

'The people of Gaza have never been in greater need of international intervention. They need help— not only from Israel, from Hamas too. Recognizing a Palestinian State is not a reward for violence; it is the conclusion of a sincere dedication to statecraft.'

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

“One of the things that distinguishes totalitarianism from other kinds of state tyranny is the way in which it invades every nook and cranny of human existence…[it] makes apolitical life impossible, thereby rendering impossible any apolitical treatment of art.”
libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

From Ihab Hassan's recent essay for @readliberties.bsky.social

"It is possible for bleeding worlds to be buried and forgotten. It is possible for hope and political prudence to fuse and forge a future worth living for, a future of hope, a future where children expect the sun to rise and set without the sounds of sirens or the sight of bludgeoned corpses."

Thought this piece on the aesthetics of our current era of fascist propaganda, and how it differs meaningfully from Abu Ghraib, was good

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Interesting look at the meaning of authenticity in Sinners and A Complete Unknown that calls out something important that tripped me up about the ending of the former: when Stack declares the acoustic blues "real," he, not the film, is the one missing the point

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Jared Marcel Pollen (not on here, I don't think) also recently wrote an excellent piece on Weiss for @readliberties.bsky.social

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

“Benton’s preoccupations with American style seem so foreign because they have so little relevance to our own time. Establishing something that was an “American art” proved to be an obsession for artists of the first four decades of the 20th century”
libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

"By the mid-1930s, Benton may well have been the most famous artist in America and perhaps the best paid. However, Benton was to live another 38 years, and during that time much of the certainties of his world evaporated and his reputation went with them."
libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Polanski's screenings at @filmforumnyc.bsky.social are packed and lines to get tickets stretch around the corner. Why?
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Charles Taylor on Polanksi -- this essay is brilliant
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Interesting piece by @jo-ann.bsky.social on why Alfred Dreyfus is everywhere. libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Happy 101st to James Baldwin. I wrote this for @readliberties.bsky.social on the occasion of his centennial. libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

We are all being forced to think about mass-starvation now -- but what happens when Israeli policy succeeds, and Gaza and the West Bank are empty of Palestinians, whether because they are dead or ethnically cleansed? We won't be reading about genocide because it will be complete

The other, less bright boy’s effort in its entirety read: ‘The swallow is a migratory bird. He have a roundy head.’” - John Banville libertiesjournal.com/articles/in-...

It took me almost a year to write this long essay on Manto, Bombay, the Indian Partition, Modi, the "inordinate responsibilities of history" (and me?), just published in the summer issue of
@readliberties.bsky.social . Really excited for you to read this!

libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...