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Don't
Shoot the Messenger!
Tracey Emin and the philosophy of confessional culture
Intimacy,
or its absence, is a recurring theme in Emin's work: there is a residual
intimacy in the unmade bed, and in the tents, beach huts and abrasive
experiences Emin wishes to share. Her true goal is for her private world
to be perceived publicly.
Patrick Hayes
The
trouble with being human these days
Identity, by Zygmunt Bauman
The
demise of social 'narrative' has not led to greater individual freedom,
but to unreflective conformism to what is considered to be human nature.
Dolan Cummings
Review:
Our
Last Great Illusion: a Radical Psychoanalytical Critique of Therapy
Culture
Rob Weatherill
As
a practising psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Weatherill
gives central prominence in explaining therapy culture to the changing
nature of intimate family relations. To wit: the death of the Oedipus
complex.
Patrick Turner
Interview: Matt
Thorne
Booker longlisted novelist (Cherry), co-editor of All
Hail the New Puritans and Independent book reviewer
'I
think character is very important, but equally I think you need to construct
characters in different ways in writing at the moment. Part of what
we did with the New Puritans was defining characters through their choice
of culture, I suppose, their taste in music and films.'
Dolan Cummings
Weary
Gargoyles
The
Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel, by James Wood, and
Contemporary British and Irish Fiction: an Introduction Through Interviews,
by Sharon Monteith, Jenny Newman and Pat Wheeler, eds
The hysterical realists may be gifted writers,
but they are not able to translate their understanding of the world
in a truly literary way, without debasing the form in the name of, for
example, macro-microeconomics.
Emilie Bickerton
A
Classical Conditioning
what does and does not put young people off classical music
The key to making classical music accessible
is surely not to present scantily clad prodigies playing rock versions
of The Four Seasons on their electric violins, but neither is it to
prescribe classical music as something that is undeniably and intrinsically
'good for you'.
Cara Bleiman
Distant
mirrors or smoke and mirrors?
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II, by
John Dower, and Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States and
the Modern Historical Experience, by Gabriel Kolko
Inasmuch as Vietnam provides a framework
for the exploration of the modern historical experience - that is, a
social framework moulded by human agency - then perhaps Iraq provides
a framework for exploring the postmodern historical experience, whose
defining feature is the lack of intent consciously to shape human history.
Philip Cunliffe
Vernon
God Little
by DBC Pierre
It is not at all certain that DBC Pierre
does stand apart from the character of Vernon. It is indeed possible
that the voice of the protagonist is little more than a marginally altered
version of the voice of the author. Maybe it's because DBC Pierre still
inhabits the mind of a young child. Regardless of this (and of speculation
about the author's limitations), as a novel Vernon God Little does stand
on its own, albeit wobbly, two feet.
Patrick Hayes
Sartre's
Huis Clos
In Camera
at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, London
In the play all life-choices have been made and the protagonists can
exact no influence upon the world whatsoever. Sartre argued that the
difference between humans living and dead should be glaringly obvious.
Patrick
Hayes
Histories,
Hopes and Memories
Hope and Memory: Reflections on the Twentieth Century, by Tzvetan
Todorov, and Interesting Times: a Twentieth Century Life, by
Eric Hobsbawm
It is only after
the ruination of the twentieth century's utopias that we find it so
difficult to invoke a time when politics and political solidarity would
be sufficiently important to disrupt human compassion.
Philip Cunliffe
Mathematics and Madness
on the thinking behind A Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting,
Pi et al
Creativity
in the sciences appears to be very different than in the arts. While
an element of irrationality or madness is often thought to inspire great
art, or even to be indispensable, it is seen in science only as a destructive
force. This is, perhaps, why the sciences are some times not seen as
'truly' creative.
Joe Kaplinsky
No Sex Appeal with Superstrings? a
sixth-year student examines why science undergraduate numbers are so
low
Those
who choose to continue studying science are doing so not because of
an exciting syllabus which generously relates the abstract theories
of science to 'everyday life', but in spite of it.
Cara Bleiman
Did I Go To School? reflections
of an A-Level student
There
has not been one point in my school life when I could stop and reflect
on the knowledge I have obtained.
Simon Davies
From dystopia to myopia: Metropolis to Blade Runner
From
the late nineties on, there has been a marked retreat into the inner
world, into childhood and away from dirty, complicated reality.
David Clements
Constitutional
Reform: has Labour got it right?
Debating Matters essay
One cannot help but feel that fear of public
disenchantment was more at the heart of this reform than public interest,
as it is currently fashionable to be seen as culturally aware and promoting
equal opportunities. It is a disappointment not to see a reform of the
court structure at the forefront of the proposals.
Alicia Thomas
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