Baudelaire’s Parisian Scenes
Charles Baudelaire’s poetic masterpiece, Les Fleurs du mal, underwent extensive reworking between 1857 and 1868, as did the French capital in which he was writing. Daniel Finch-Race explores the ecopoetic implications of such upheaval in ‘Le cygne’, a poem torn between antiquity and modernity.
Brazil’s Political Carnival
In the midst of the country’s haunting political crisis, more than ever before Carnival in Brazil has become an occasion for criticism, parody and political caricature.
The Syrian Kurds at a crossroad
The sharp regional and international alignments that have currently gripped the Middle East in general, and Syria in particular, have put the Syrian Kurds at a crossroads.
Statues are not safe in India
One cynic says that after every election, the new Government can spend its first year in uninstalling the statutes erected by the previous regime. One commentator is sure that streets named after Lenin will now be renamed to glorify some Hindu nationalist leader!
Crypto currencies don’t make sense
Cryptocurrencies are supposedly a new and superior form of money and investments – the way of the future. The author of this article, however, does not see the point of cryptocurrencies, finding them no better than existing fiat money or good investments.
Proust and Scott Moncrieff
Scott Moncrieff’s English translation of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu is widely hailed as a masterpiece in its own right. William C. Carter explores the somewhat sticky issue of how the Shakespearean title missed the mark regarding Proust’s theory of memory.
“Frankenstein in Baghdad” Review
The prize-winning novel “Frankenstein in Baghdad” by Iraqi novelist Ahmed Saadawi has finally been translated into English. His reworking of Mary Shelley’s iconic horror story is set in the Iraqi capital torn apart by sectarian violence.
Sisi’s Coronation and the Egyptian Opposition
In an attempt to centralize power, the regime is in the process of creating one unified enemy, an alliance between the disgruntled security and civilian elites as well as the opposition.
Fox/Sky: here comes the crunch
Fox acquisition of the other 61% of Sky may ‘act against the public interest, reducing media plurality’. Yet Sky shares rose when the ruling was published. What is going on?
New York empties its jails
A huge achievement that could even signify the beginning of a more rational, humane approach to American criminal justice: how was it done?