Four Years of Links or, What I Did While Not on Vacation

This long post is especially for my incredibly supportive subscribers and supporters. I’ve been promising you that I’ll send you a list of everything I’ve written over the last four years, and here it is. I’ve divided the links into sections: Politics; Books, Publishing, and the Literary World; Academia; COVID; Film, Television, and Culture; Gaza; Trauma; Queer Politics; Social Media; Space/Cities; Podcasts and Interviews. I’ve included a couple of links to work published a little before 2020, just to remind people that I’ve been working on some topics (like trauma) for a really long time. In fact, my work is considered so ground-breaking and well-established that places like the New Yorker and The Atlantic have published my essays on trauma and polyamory, albeit under pseudonyms.

A lot has happened since the pandemic began, some of it nearly disastrous but a lot that’s, well, much less so and very promising. The last four years have been very stressful, and the next couple of months will be the same, but there is light, perhaps a few different points of light, at the ends of various tunnels. September is going to be a very busy month as I continue to work on deadlines, but I’m still averaging about one new piece per week. Once I’m past the deadlines, I’ll be diving into a number of long-form works that I’ve had to postpone. I aim to send out updates once a month, or perhaps fortnightly (let me know if you have a preference: once a week was proving to be a lot, sadly.)

The best news so far is that I have never been happier about my writing. There’s a certain section of the publishing and, ah, dare I say, the literary world where you’re not supposed to actually admit that you love writing. But I always have, and I’m continuing to explore incredible new avenues, fiction among them. Yes, fiction, and I don’t mean some meta-theoretical-this-isn’t-really-fiction-because-I’m-too-cool-to-bother-with-plot-and-character-and-silly stuff-like-that fiction. I mean the very old-fashioned kind, that requires a lot of work and blood, sweat, and tears. More on that later.

I’ve used William Brooker’s 1976 Gourds on a Cloth to illustrate this update: I want my writing to eventually achieve that kind of clarity and simplicity.

I did suffer a shock in the last couple of years (some of you on social media are aware of this), when I woke up to find out that my book project on social justice could be plagiarised. My first and worst instinct was to end everything at once, and I do mean everything, but I was able to work through that. I don’t have the resources for legal help, but I am resourceful, and I knew where to go. Lawyers for the Creative Arts, here in Chicago, was incredible, and if you’re in the city and need their legal expertise, you should consult them and/or support the work they do. Without LCA, I don’t know where I would be.

I’ll probably have more details later, but for now: I’m happy to report that my project remains my own, and is moving along.

I have, for over a decade, been promising work on the topic of plagiarism, and the first essay on that subject, “On Plagiarism,” is up on the site. It turns out that I have been Cassandra-like in my warnings: I wrote “Don’t Share Your Book Proposal” as well, and there are already at least two public essays/ revelations about authors and editors stealing book projects from others. Plagiarism is a subject on which I’ve interviewed several people, and I’ll be writing a lot more in the coming months. Among the forthcoming works is one titled “Plagiarism and Its Consequences,” where I offer suggestions on what should happen to plagiarists, and what the publishing world can and should do about a growing problem. I plan to advocate for and help create changes in laws relating to plagiarism, and to also make it possible for those whose work has been plagiarised to be much more aggressive and open about what has been done to them. It’s all very much a nebulous area for now, and one of the biggest problems with tackling plagiarism is that most writers, whether academic or non-academic, have to worry about being pushed out of a world that’s very small and insular, and where even the slightest complaint can result in being denied the few publishing opportunities available to anyone.

For this and other reasons, I plan on writing a lot more about the publishing world, which is increasingly only open to those who have the privilege to work for very little or nothing. Among my most shared essays is a Current Affairs long-form piece on the New York Times Book Review, “The New York Times Book Review Is Everything Book Criticism Shouldn’t Be.” I also finally published “What Really Happened at Current Affairs?”

I sorely miss writing those long, luxurious essays you’re all accustomed to, but there will be many come fall. In the meantime, you can expect shorter essays (sometimes two or three a week, as you’ll see from the timeline here), especially as the elections draw close. I’m not optimistic about a Kamala Harris win, but more on that later.

As always, if you’re new to my work, and would like to know more, start here: “A Manifesto.” You can (and should) also peruse this website, using the search box and/or checking out the categories.

My work would be impossible without the financial support of subscribers, supporters, and donors, many of whom have been with me for a very long time. If you like what you read here and want to see more of my truly independent work, unfiltered by the demands of mainstream media or the desire to simply produce hot takes of the day, please subscribe and/or donate.

 POLITICS

“A Manifesto.”

“Kamala Harris is the Boy Band of Politicians“

“Kamala Harris Will Lose”

“DACA Was Always DOA.  Let’s End It Now”

“Rights Make Might: The Dystopian Undertow of Hillary Clinton’s Elite Feminism”

“A Better Son or Daughter: Donald Trump, Amnesia, and a Capitalist Fable”

“On Immigrants, Criminality, and Changing the Narrative”

“No, Not Pete Buttigieg”

“Pete Buttigieg Is Still Playing”

“American Gay: Pete Buttigieg and the Politics of Forgetting” 

“Critical Race Theory Won’t Save Us”

“On Cat Ladies and Culture Wars”

“Hillary Clinton Needs To Retire”

“Every President Is a Sociopath”

“Everything We Do, We Do for the Ones After Us”

“AOC and the Weaponisation of Trauma”

“On Abortion Stories”

“On Race, AI, and Representation Or, Why Democracy Now Needs To Redo Its June Segment”

“Olivia Nuzzi Interviews Stormy Daniels, And We Learn Nothing”

“On Trump, Prisons, And Abolition”

“On Race, Brandon Johnson, and Chicago’s Mayoral Election”

“Private Parts & Public Sex”

“Sharbat Gula Is Not Lost” (An essay, my most experimental yet, on the subject of the famous “Afghan Girl” photograph.)

“Cheap Restaurants Are The Canaries In The Coal Mine”

“Son, You Lie: Harry Windsor Is Exploiting His Mother’s Death”

“On Stacey Abrams And All Those Hopes”

“What Should We Do With Kansas?” (On abortion.)

“On Abortion Stories”

“Kate Middleton or, Abolish the Monarchy”

“We Created the Cuomos” 

“Juliana Margulies and White Saviour Math”

“We Took Hillary Clinton’s MasterClass So That You Don’t Have To”

“On Adam Toledo As A Child”

“On Titan, Migrants, and Mourning”

“What Does Your Politician Mean to You?”

“Rishi Sunak Is The Face Of Empire”

“On the Obamas As Nouveaux Riches” 

“Organise Like The Right”

“Travel, Passports, and the Differences between Expats and Immigrants”

“Obama’s Birthday Bash Is for Neoliberal Elites” 

“Abortive Reasoning: What’s Wrong with the Abortion Rights Debate”

A Better Son Or Daughter: Donald Trump, amnesia, and a capitalist fable (A review of Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough.)

“Against Humanity: On Ma’Khia Bryant and George Floyd”

“Elections Have Consequences”: Why We Should Scrap The Current System”

“Should You Vote?”

“We Created R. Kelly” 

“WeWork Or, Give People Money”

“Adoption and the Burden of Whiteness”

“Stop Humanising Victims”

“Today” (On nearly being shot, and Chicago.)

“Domesticus Scientifica: Or, How Temperance Brennan Lost Her Mind and Became a Woman”

“AOC and the Weaponisation of Trauma”

“No, Neera Tanden Was Not Cancelled over Her Tweets”

BOOKS, PUBLISHING, AND THE LITERARY WORLD

“The NYT Book Review Is Everything Book Criticism Shouldn’t Be”

“‘Cat Person’ Will Never Die”

“What Really Happened at Current Affairs?”

“Don’t Share Your Book Proposal”

“Is There a Place for the Small Novel?”

“On Originality”

“The Plagiarism Papers”

The Politics of Publishing: Fixing the publishing industry will require eliminating exploitation, not just improving representation. Includes a bit on the controversy surrounding American Dirt. 

“On Salman Rushdie”

“Stop Posting Quotes Without Links”

“On Originality”

“Marie Claire Throws Dog Food at Writers”

“The Writer As Magazine”

“The Corruption of Influence: On Dimes Square, Byline, and the New York Times”

“A Portion of the Mind: On Writing and Nobel Prizes”

“I’m a Freelance Writer.  I Refuse to Work for Free”

“Lyrical Doughnuts or, the “I” in Writing”

“On Salman Rushdie”

“The Writer As Magazine”

“The Publishing World Is Like Fyre Fest.”

“The Politics of Publishing.” 

“On Jane Austen’s Frederic and Elfrida”

“On Mary Wollstonecraft and Public/Pubic Art”

“Buy That Book!”

ACADEMIA

“The Plagiarism Papers”

“On Plagiarism“

“On Graduation”

“On Race, Class, and Education”

“Is Harvard the Problem?”

“On Race, Class, and Education”

“The Chair Is Everything You Expect, And That’s the Problem”

COVID

“Pandemic” series

Grit

“Are You Data?”

“Grief” 

“On Joe Biden and COVID”

“Person”

“So Long, and Thanks for Nothing”

“Some Of You Have Never Died, And It Shows” 

“Stop Blaming the Unvaccinated” 

“Your Brain on COVID”

“The COVID Deaths We Can’t Count” 

“On Guilt and Vaccinations”

“Sad”

“A Mask Is A Paper Bag for Your Eggs”

“Piglet”

“Good” 

“Shame”

“Spawn,” about children and death and coughing. 

“Breath,” about fear and cops and disappearing.

“Person,” about how we think of the aged during these times.  This was by far the most difficult one to write.  

“Piglet”

“A Mask Is A Paper Bag for Your Eggs”

“Shame“

FILM, TELEVISION, AND CULTURE 

“The Masalafication of Everything”

“Losing Eve: Is That All There Is?”

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene: On Blackness in Queen’s Gambit” 

“Zombie Breasts” (Review of Army of the Dead)

“Everyone Needs a Course on Taylor Swift.”

“Necessary Evil: Did Justified Lose Its Way?”

“On Lizzo and Sex and Bananas, Oh My”

“Juliana Margulies and White Saviour Math”

“A Bestiary in Silks: Fashion and Race In And Just Like That.”

“The Style It Takes Or, The Difference between Style and Fashion.” This is part of a four-part collaboration with Sarah Miller, with whom I’ve been watching And Just Like That. Sarah has also written a couple of essays: the first is about our viewing experience, “And Just Like That: It Takes A Village,” and the second is a tremendous piece of fan fiction, “Big Problem.” To truly enjoy our quartet, you should read all of them (I recommend sandwiching my two essays in between Sarah’s works, for maximum effect).

Also, support us, please: Sarah’s support link is here, and mine is here.

“Sex and the City’s Soft White Supremacy.”

“Here Be No Monsters,” about the finale of Succession, for In These Times. 

“What Succession Teaches Us About Capitalism.” 

“On Prey and the Burden of Indigenous Representation.”

“On Sex, Marriage, And That White Lotus Finale”

“And She Ran: Sleeping With The Enemy As A Horror Film”

“On Pelé”

Wickett

On Blackness In The Arts”

“The Business Of Britney”

“Kiss and Run: On Matty Healy and White Saviours”

“A Gauntlet of Lesbians: In Praise Of The Middlebrow”

GAZA

“On Palestine and Liberalism”

“Thomas Friedman Is a Dinosaur, and a New World Is Here”

“How Zionism’s Brutality Reaches from Gaza’s Beaches to US Academia”

“On Israel Killing Children”

“On Palestine, Israel and the Failure of Liberalism, and a Quick Update”

“Juliana Margulies and White Saviour Math”

TRAUMA

“AOC and the Weaponisation of Trauma” 

“On Hasan Minhaj, Trauma Passports, and Immigrant Fictions”

“Hasan Minhaj and the Curious Case of the Everlasting Untruths”

“Trauma and Capitalism or, Your Trauma Story Will Kill You”

“Your Trauma Is Your Passport: Hannah Gadsby, Nanette, and Global Citizenship” Also on trauma: The Ideal Neoliberal Subject is the Subject of Trauma, my interview with Hypocrite Reader.

 “The Perils of Trauma Feminism,” a review of Rafia Zakaria’s Against White Feminism and Kyla Schuller’s The Trouble with White Women.

“Hannah Gadsby, Then and Now”

“The Perils of Trauma Feminism”

“No, No, Nanette: Hannah Gadsby, Trauma, and Comedy as Emotional Manipulation” 

“On Trauma, Labour, and Quiet on the Set 

QUEER POLITICS

“Gay Marriage Ruined Everything”

“What Chasten Buttigieg Has to Tell Us,” a review of Buttigieg’s “memoir” that broke the internet.

“I Broke the Internet or, Daily Posts, September 11-15”

“Where the Gay Things Are: Gay marriage was a victory, we’re told—but a victory for what?” on queer politics and how we got here, with glorious artwork by Seb Westcott. 

“On Kink at Pride”

“Her Name Was Norma”

“Polyamory Is Gay Marriage for Straight People”

SOCIAL MEDIA

“On Leaving Twitter, or Not”

“Twitter Is Not Your Writing Life”

“On the Possible Death of Social Media”

 “Are Lefty Podcasts Sexist?”

“On J. K. Rowling, Pamela Paul, and the Logic of Virality”

“Age And Social Media”

“Riding the Hashtag.”

“On Caroline Calloway and Whole Foods”

“Can We Save Facebook?”, Current Affairs

SPACE/CITIES

“Toronto: Raccoon City”

“Of Towers and Toilets: A Tale of Two Developments” (On Obama, and gentrification in Chicago and Florida, book review of Jason Vuic’s Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream.)

“New York: The Invention of an Imaginary City: How nostalgic fantasies about the “authentic” New York City obscure the real-world place

“Boosted”: A Review of Blake Kamin’s Who Is the City For?: Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago

“American Dreaming“: A Review of American Framing: The Same Something for Everyone.

PODCASTS AND INTERVIEWS

I’ve been on a number of podcasts, and here is a list I found online of some of my appearances. 

Here I am, on The Nostalgia Trap, talking to David Parsons about grief, in two parts. Here’s the first, and here’s the second. 

Here’s Part One of a conversation on the Exploding Appendix podcast. 

“What Is Trauma Feminism?” An interview with Karma Chávez on the actual radio.

Nathan J. Robinson and I did a podcast about my article for Current Affairs, “Where the Gay Things Are.”  We also talked about the changes at the magazine. 

I spoke with Adam Goodman of Plan A about Celebrity Adoptions. 

I spoke with Nashwa Lina Khan of Habibti Please, about matters raised by my piece on the Dancing Girls of Lahore. You can hear a teaser here. 

I spoke with Dale Peck at my beloved Evergreen Review  about a range of issues. 

I talked to David Parsons at Nostalgia Trap about bodies and power, and more.

I David Parsons at Nostalgia Trap about Money vs. Wealth. 

I spoke to Current Affairs about publishing, feminism, and more. 

I was also on the Ear to the Pavement podcast, with Allison Lirish Dean, about the book She Said, and the #MeToo movement, and on Amia Srinivasan’s The Right to Sex. We also did an episode on Know My Name, Chanel Miller’s memoir about her sexual assault and the aftermath, and another on Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill.  You can find the links to these and other episodes of Ear to the Pavement here.

I spoke to Current Affairs about “The Arts” and funding and the writing world and related topics. The first part is here and the second is here.

Plan A podcast on  Kinky Pride, Chimamanda, and Spineless Cultural Critics.

Here’s another Nostalgia Trap episode with David Parsons, “No Place Like Home.” 

Here’s one of my favourite podcasts, “Aping Revolution”: Nostalgia Trap Episode on Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

An Elite Daily Piece on Abolition: “Modern Abolitionists Share What Emancipation Means On Juneteenth 2020.” I was interviewed, along with others, by Madhuri Satish about what abolitionist politics mean to me, as we approached Juneteenth. 

“Can the Minions Tell Us Anything?” On the Current Affairs podcast, I had a great conversation with Nathan and Lily about the Minion movies.  It’s a particularly hilarious episode because Nathan went into it hating the very idea of the Minions (and emerged unchanged in his opinion), Lily pointed out that their racial politics were really…very bad, and I went bouncing in convinced that I’d change their minds because, who could not love the Minions?  I was the only one who changed her mind, and they were right.

Here, I discuss “Corporate Wokeness,” with the excellent folk on Escape from Plan A.

I was on Nostalgia Trap, with David Parsons, and we spoke about Trauma and how it has suffused all of life and work around us. This episode is free, but do support this excellent podcast if you can.

Here’s my Radio Free Galistea podcast about gay Marriage and Wokism. 

 A “Min-terview” with Current Affairs, Where I Am Confronted about My Kitten-Eating Habits and I Also Take on the World of Publishing.

My interview with Mtume Gant, about what “Indie” means these days (and what it doesn’t mean): “Indie No More.” I always learn something new from Mtume during our conversations, and I encourage you to follow and support him–he’s a rare and necessarily bold voice in all the conversations about filmmaking in particular and creative work in general.

“The Politics of Publishing” (Current Affairs podcast)

“Nostalgia Trap – Episode 295: Good Grief, Part One w/ Yasmin Nair”

I was on Mtume Gant’s podcast, talking about what “Indie” really means these days, in a world of infinite corporatisation disguised to look like revolutionary work. 

I discuss Tom Cruise, yes, Tom Cruise with David Parsons of Nostalgia Trap.