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‘Beware of the ninnies!’ – Thoughts on ballet history
Read more: ‘Beware of the ninnies!’ – Thoughts on ballet historySebastian Cody explores the challenges of ballet historiography, emphasising the need for rigorous scholarship amidst widespread inaccuracies
What is to Be Done, with Theory?
By Gabriel Rockhill Theory is a particular type of practice, with its own set of rules, rituals and sanctions. To participate in its more institutionalised and prominent forms, it is necessary to engage with these norms and to negotiate one’s…
Fredric Jameson’s The Political Unconscious
By Enda Duffy Professor of English, UC Santa Barbara Fredric Jameson may be the world’s most distinguished literary and cultural theorist living today. His influence since the 1980s on materialist, cultural and literary criticism, from the U.S. to China, has…
Transformative Power of Culture in Occupied Germany 1945-1949
Elaine Morley The Occupation of Germany is a unique field for comparatists to explore given the fact that in this period five major world cultures – American, British, French, German and Soviet – were literally rubbing shoulders in Germany. I’ve…
Islamic Thought in China
“There are Muslims in China? I didn’t know that.” Yes, indeed, there are—possibly as many as 25-30 million souls—and they constitute a fascinating segment of two vital world entities, “China” and “Islam.” Almost half of them speak Chinese as their…
Driving, thinking and the consequences of the driverless car [Part 2]
By Lynne Pearce Quite apart from its utility as a means of transport – or, indeed, its significance as a status-symbol – the twentieth-automobile has provided drivers and passengers with a personalised refuge and thought-space in which to touch base…
Driving, thinking and the consequences of the driverless car [Part 1]
By Lynne Pearce Both in the news and among those academics whose work is concerned with transport futures there appears to be a widespread assumption that driverless cars are both inevitable and desirable. While there is, as yet, no coherent…
Death Drive
Here, Matt Ffytche introduces a special issue of Psychoanalysis and History, Afterlives of the Death Drive. The death drive has proved relevant to so many different intellectual contexts in part because of the extravagance, or allusiveness of Freud’s original gesture…
Pioneers in Roman Archaeology
“Pioneers in Roman Archaeology: The Antonine Wall Committee” by Lawrence Keppie at The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, appears in the Scottish Archaeological Journal, Volume 38 Issue 1, Page 1-31, ISSN 1471-5767. The paper considers the origins of a Committee established…
Jean-Luc Nancy and the Harlem Tiger
By Carrie Giunta Daily life in New York City has its many challenges. In the concrete jungle, it’s a struggle to survive. But when one Harlem resident kept a 500-pound tiger and a seven-foot alligator as roommates, it raised philosophical…
John Stephens on Editing an International Journal
“Issue 9.1 marks my final issue as Editor of IRCL, and so it is an apt occasion to reflect on some of the challenges that face an international journal. When IRCL was officially launched at the 18th Biennial IRSCL Congress…