• A black and white photograph of Hermann Gross holding a metalworking tool, with an in-progress sculpture before him.

About William S. Burroughs

By Stanley Gontarski American outlier writer, William S. Burroughs, was a creative force, as a writer in his own right, and as a cultural theorist, particularly his anticipation of what we now regularly call “a society of control” or “a…

Cover image for A Process Philosophy of Signs by James Williams

Behind Red Doors – Signs, Process and the Political

In January 2016, a scandal broke out in the UK when the Times reported that asylum seekers’ homes could be identified by distinctive red doors, making them vulnerable to attacks. Coincidentally – but not where signs and the political are concerned – A Process Philosophy of Signs opens with an account of threatening identification on doors.

Bogus criticisms and animal becomings

By Ashley Woodward Peter Shaffer’s play Equus is perhaps best known to some today as ‘the one in which Harry Potter gets his kit off’ (as one of my students put it). Yet apart from the fact that it’s controversial…