Reviews Archives - Page 10 of 17

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BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee’s answer to The Birth of a Nation

August 28, 2018 • by Mark Allan Williams

“Do the Right Thing.” “Jungle Fever.” “Malcolm X.” Now “BlacKkKlansman.” No maker of feature films in our time, or perhaps during any time, has placed so much of their work at the center of the social and political discourse as Spike Lee. His cinematic voice is political and his platform is ...

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Hiding in Plain Sight

Revealing the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire

August 17, 2018 • by Christopher Gioia

Post Stonewall activism in the gay community ushered in an era of liberation that would result in a social shift toward increased visibility and acceptance. One of the most critical victories was the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders in 1973. Franklin Kameny, ...

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Science Fiction and the Angel of History

A review of, ‘Sorry to Bother You’

August 10, 2018 • by Benjamin Balthaser

"It was 100 years ago… by which I mean last Monday" Brooke Gladstone of NPR's On the Media sighed after Trump's performance in Helsinki. Whatever one thinks about our current president, Gladstone's sigh is the kind of thing one hears a lot these days, as the calamities and once-in-a-century happenings pile up ...

Science Fiction and the Angel of History

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Indictus: by Natalie Eilbert

A review

August 7, 2018 • by Sarah V. Schweig

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, che la diritta via era smarrita … Io non so ben ridir com’ io v’ entrai, tanto era pien di sonno in su quel punto che la verace via abbandonai ... —Dante Alighieri, Inferno 1. That words are “filthy” and yet poetry is redemptive is the provocative ...

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“The Young Karl Marx”

A film review

July 30, 2018 • by Ronald Tiersky

After a month in American theaters, the box office for “The young Karl Marx” was all of $58,277. This is almost incomprehensible as this is a wonderful, politically, historically and culturally rich film. A major international collaboration with first rate foreign actors, the film played at a single indie theater on ...

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Justice Through Solidarity

Bernice Yeung’s In a Day’s Work

July 23, 2018 • by Eileen Boris

Bernice Yeung exposes the sexual harassment and rape endemic to isolated fields, offices, and homes. Despite poverty, undocumented status, and economic desperation, women farmworkers, janitors, and domestic workers have mustered the courage to overcome shame and speak out against abuse. Yeung chronicles their personal journeys. Nonetheless, it is easy to ...

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Was it all futile?

Review: John Kelly’s ‘Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain’

July 14, 2018 • by Ian Birchall

Among the many moral panics aroused by Jeremy Corbyn's accession to the Labour leadership has been the return of the spectre of Trotskyism. Lord Hattersley has warned that ‘the old gang is back’, referring explicitly to the Militant grouping of the 1980s; Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson has produced ‘evidence’ ...

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Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History

A review of Steven Zipperstein’s new book

July 5, 2018 • by Marci Shore

Steven Zipperstein’s new book, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History, is uncannily timely: today in particular we might appreciate the irony of fate that American anti-racism can trace one line of origin to a backwoods region of the Russian Empire. This region, Bessarabia, is among those parts of Eastern Europe ...

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The 1970s Gay Sex Scandal That Enthralled Britons Is Back

What the Thorpe affair reveals about the history of elite men seeking sex and relationships with other men

June 26, 2018 • by Emily Rutherford

When British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder on June 22, 1979, the press had a field day. Thorpe allegedly paid to have his lover of fifteen years -- the horse groom and sometime model Norman Scott -- assassinated. The outing of a popular, charismatic ...

The 1970s Gay Sex Scandal That Enthralled Britons Is Back

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A Conversation on Get Out

Black Issues in Philosophy

June 25, 2018 • by Lewis Gordon and Derefe Kimarley Chevannes

Having recently viewed Jordan Peele’s award-winning Get Out (2017), political theorist Derefe Kimarley Chevannes was prompted to discuss the film with philosopher Lewis Gordon, whose writings include discussions of race in horror films and literature. DEREFE KIMARLEY CHEVANNES: Lewis, it’s a pleasure to have this discussion with you. As I begin, ...

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A Conversation on The Black Panther

Black Issues in Philosophy

June 17, 2018 • by Lewis Gordon and Gregory Doukas

Prior to the release of The Black Panther, some well-intentioned whites on social media recommended whites to wait a week before going to see the movie so black audiences could “have their moment” without white intrusion. Greg Doukas felt this stance was senseless, and contacted Lewis Gordon to hear his thoughts. Gordon ...

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Recognitions and Company

Reviewing Brittney Cooper’s ‘Eloquent Rage’

May 26, 2018 • by Wahneema Lubiano

My feelings, for their part, go on strike against me all the time, showing up with picket signs that scream truths I’d rather not hear, all while demanding that I renegotiate terms. —Brittney Cooper (Eloquent Rage, 204) What might one want when reading a personal narrative, a memoir, a story with multiple ...