Rayna Salam Archives - Public Seminar

Literature

Brick by Brick: Richard Siken Rebuilds His Interior World

In I Do Know Some Things, the poet proposes an “encyclopedia of self”

February 13, 2026 • by Rayna Salam

“Who you are and who you think you are: They grind against each other, sand in the frosting,” poet and painter Richard Siken writes in his long-awaited third collection. I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon Press, 2025) continues his previous exploration of selfhood, but with a harrowing purpose. In ...

First as Comedy, Then as Farce

A conversation with Benjamin Mangrum on the assembly of The Comedy of Computation

December 16, 2025 • by Benjamin Mangrum and Rayna Salam

When confronted with change we don’t understand, there is only one thing to do: laugh. Or so says MIT literature professor Benjamin Mangrum. In his new book, The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence (Stanford University Press, 2025), Mangrum peers into the archives ...

The Revolutionary Street Art of Bangladesh’s 2024 Uprising

In Dhaka, layers of graffiti offer a timeline of hope

September 29, 2025 • by Rayna Salam

Inspired by a popular insurrection against Sheikh Hasina’s increasingly autocratic 15-year tenure as prime minister of Bangladesh, in July 2024, US-based Bangladeshi artist Debashish Chakrabarty produced and circulated online more than 100 posters illustrating the symbols, martyrs, and demands of the movement. He urged protesters around the world to copy ...