I am sad to say that Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014), one of my most important teachers, has passed away. I have written a short remembrance of him that either will appear here or in some other form.

 

Tomaž Šalamun

Christopher Merrill, “Remembering Tomaž Šalamun.”

Andrew Epstein, “Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014) and the New York School.”

Dalkey Archive Press on Šalamun.

And though I can’t read Slovenian, there is much here, including video of a television report.

Environment and Disaster

Alyssa Battistoni, “Nature’s Metropolis.”

Sam Gindin, “When History Knocks.”

Lindsay Abrams, “Europe’s Age of Inferno: How a Volcano Swallowed the Western World.”

Nick Bostrom, “You Should Be Terrified of Superintelligent Machines.”

David Harvey and Leo Panitch, “Beyond Impossible Reform and Improbably Revolution.”

 

National Security State

Margo Schlanger, “Infiltrate the NSA.”

Matt Taibbi, “The NYPD’s ‘Work Stoppage’ Is Surreal.”

 

Literature and Culture

A. O. Scott, “Is Our Art Equal to the Challenge of Our Times?”

Michael Gould-Wartofsky, “When Rioting Is Rational.”

Joshua Zelesnick, “The New Civil Rights Movement.”

Ben Davis, “After Ferguson: A New Protest Culture’s Challenge to Art.”

Jonathan Sturgeon, “2014: The Death of the Postmodern Novel and the Rise of Autofiction.”

Jhave, “Prying: Jhave on Tender Claws’ New App.”

Victoria Dailey, “Descartes, Dick, and the Dog: Pierre Huyghe at LACMA.”

Max Fisher, “Seeing The Interview Doesn’t Hurt North Korea and Kim Jong Un — it Helps Them.”

Alexander R. Galloway, review of The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism, by Steven Shaviro.

Bryan Doerries, review of Why Homer Matters, by Adam Nicholson.

Eric Swain, “This Year in Video Game Blogging: 2014.”

Abraham Riesman, “Meet Valiant Entertainment, Superhero Comics’ Strangest Success Story.”