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Index: Books & Publishing

Volume Five.

Rev. Andrew Louth: ‘The completion of the project of translating the Philokalia is an end that is also a beginning. Now we have in English a complete translation of the Philokalia.’

The Workshop.

Michelene Wandor: ‘In academic terms, the workshop is another word for the seminar: small-group teaching which aims to maximise and democratise student participation. The sources of this form of  learning come from both ends of the educational class and age spectrums.’

The wages for reading is rage.

Christopher Landrum: ‘It must be admitted that the recent sentence-by-sentence inspections of some books from some of our school libraries may mean–because the inspections occur under sunlight, accompanied by the use of magnifying glasses–some volumes run the risk of spontaneous combustion. But such incidents should be considered statistical outliers.’

Considering ‘The Young American Writers’ anthology, fifty-five years later.

Richard Kostelanetz: ‘Both Carroll and myself resisted attributing to our writers a common esthetic stance and, in this respect, we differed from, say, Ezra Pound’s Des Imagists (1914). Or even a common background, such as a geographical residence or university writing programs.’

Modern Artiques.

Robert Almon: ‘T.S.Eliot, who before he was twenty one, had written as fine poetry as this generation has produced, is a victim of the culture via ideas regime, more insistently the autocrat of the English mind than it is of the American.’

Literary politics in America.

Richard Kostelanetz; ‘This essay repeats criticisms made by me in periodicals and conversations over the past decade, when they were heard or read by an angry but ineffectual few. Only in 1970 did I realize that if my complete critique were written and then published in permanent form, we could have more leverage in dealing with adversity.’

Adorno on Modern Music — A Coda

Tronn Overend: ‘In Adorno’s analysis, jazz is simply equated with ragtime. It is certainly correct that Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag (1899) and Irving Berlin’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1911) were important foundations. The edifice that was then built, however, evolved rapidly.’

The dangerous boredom of the rich.

. By MICHAEL BLACKBURN. WHY DOES SUPER-wealthy Bill Gates take such an interest in getting the whole world vaccinated? Why does super-wealthy George Soros fund numerous organisations around the world that call for open borders, thus enabling the dissolution of nation states, including the United States? Why does wealthy Tony Blair keep floating around promoting […]

The ‘Fortnightly’—a retrospect.

B.W. Matz: ‘To turn over that file is to find an array of articles by Mr. Herbert Spencer, mostly, as might be supposed, on the subject of his great system of philosophy. Again, we have the Pre-Raphaelites, of Rossetti and Burne-Jones and Bell Scott, as well as of Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Meredith. Nonconformity was given its full voice, but, indeed, taking the mere test of names, to what phase of work or thought did Mr. Morley not give the opportunity of print? Newman, Manning, Mazzini, Freeman, Walter Pater, William Morris, Henry Morley, Max Müller, Symonds, Congreve—that is the kind of contributors’ gallery which opens out.’

The Robots of Amazon.

Ian Gardner: ‘In a democratic society, laws determine how freedom of speech and expression are to be exercised, not the private whims of powerful businesses. Amazon has quickly grown to be an important retailer relied on by hundreds of thousands of customers and the decision to censor books is both a huge disappointment and a real concern.’

Tarn’s ‘Hölderliniae’. 

Anthony Rudolf: ‘The intensity and power, the imbrication and musicality, the driving rhythm and complex syntax, in short the poet’s brain work and heart work, generate a singular and beautiful book.’

The reascent of the Decline.

James Gallant: ‘A number of the signs of societal collapse Spengler described are common experience for us: evisceration of rural areas and concentrations of atomized populations in great cities, gross economic disparities among classes, Caesar-like politicians with mass followings, propaganda disguised as political discourse, political parties serving as stooges for money interests, international military and political blundering, declining birth rates (associated by Spengler with feminism), effete intellectualism, bogus revivals of primitive religiosity, and decadent entertainment.’

‘Ghost’ and six more new poems.

By JOHANNA HIGGINS. . 1.Ghost. IT’S THE BREATHING out that kills The drawing in throughout The love that spills. The reddened love That Turns and tears At flesh, at Some adhesion, Where the blood meets Ghost and reason. Untitled: 2. AS DUST LIES, So The thrill of fleshful things Has moved. Lost In the desire […]

Adorno and the ‘Philosophy of Modern Music’.

Tronn Overend: ‘Adorno selects the thesis and the antithesis of Stravinsky and Schoenberg as his case studies. In Kantian terms, they are in permanent opposition, never reconciliation. In other words, there can be no synthesis, because, as Schoenberg had remarked, ‘the middle road is the only one which does not lead to Rome.”‘

Poetry in paragraphs.

Simon Collings: ‘”The Prose Poem Now” takes us from the present back to 2000, “The Postmodern Prose Poem” covers the second half of the twentieth century, and “The Modern Prose Poem” covers the century from the 1940s back to 1842.’