“Something Worth Leaving in Shards: An Interview with Rachel Blau DuPlessis” in boundary 2

boundary 2, vol 50, no 2, cover image I am honored to say that my interview with the great poet and critic Rachel Blau DuPlessis, “Something Worth Leaving in Shards: An Interview with Rachel Blau DuPlessis,” has just been published in the most recent issue of boundary 2. (This link should provide access for three months.) I am deeply grateful to DuPlessis for corresponding with me during the summer of 2020. In lockdown with no childcare, corresponding with DuPlessis via email to conduct this interview (when I had a spare moment or two to do so) played a large part in keeping me sane during that difficult time. A huge thanks also to Racheal and Aviva, who were right there every day along with me while this interview was being conducted.

Here’s an abstract of the interview:

This interview with poet, essayist, literary critic, and collagist Rachel Blau DuPlessis was conducted via email correspondence between June 11 and August 29, 2020. Author of over a dozen volumes of poetry and half a dozen books in modernist studies, poetics, and feminist criticism, DuPlessis reflects broadly on her career in this interview. She discusses the ongoing role of feminism in her writing and thought, the forms of the fold and the fragment, the relationship between her poetry and criticism, her work in and on the long poem, and her post‐Drafts poetry, including her (at the time) most recent book, Late Work (2020). The interview concludes with a conversation about the relationship between poetry and theorizing practices and a meditation on writing during a global pandemic.

For my writing on DuPlessis: “‘Is an Archive Enough?’: Megatextual Debris in the Work of Rachel Blau DuPlessis.”

And for previous interviews: “Isn’t It a Beautiful Day? An Interview with J. Hillis Miller” and “An Interview with Jonathan Arac.”

Fall 2022 Links

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Nuclear and Environmental

Max Bearak, Raymond Zhong, and Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, “Deadly Floods Devastate an Already Fragile Pakistan.”

Katie Rogers and David E. Sanger, “Biden Calls the ‘Prospect of Armageddon’ the Highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

David Wallace-Wells, “The World Took a Bold, Toothless Step Forward on Climate Justice” and “Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming into View.”

Somini Sengupta, “‘A Reason to Act Faster’: World Leaders Meet on Climate Amid Other Crises.”

Max Bearak, “Climate Pledges Are Falling Short, and a Chaotic Future Looks More Like Reality.”

Brad Plumer, Max Bearak, Lisa Friedman, and Jenny Gross, “UN Climate Talks End with a Deal to Pay Poor Nations for Damage.”

Catrin Einhorn, “Researchers Report a Staggering Decline in Wildlife. Here’s How to Understand It.”

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MLA 2023: Twenty-First-Century Forms

For this year’s Modern Language Association Convention, to be held January 5–8, 2023 in San Francisco, California, I organized and will be speaking on a roundtable on Twenty-First-Century Forms, along with Daniel Burns, Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth, Kathryn Harlan-Gran, Kevin Pyon, and Elizabeth Sotelo. I have included the information about the panel and, below that, full abstracts from each speaker.

197. Twenty-First-Century Forms

Friday, January 6, 2023, 8:30–9:45 a.m. (PST)

If one might argue that the novel and lyric poem have become residual forms, what literary forms are emerging in contemporaneity? Panelists explore emergent literary forms of the twenty-first century and their relationship with, instantiation in, or remediation by other (digital) media: film, documentary, social media, publishing platforms, transmedia, autotheory, and other hybrid narrative and poetic forms.

Speakers
Dan Burns (Elon University)
Bradley J. Fest (Hartwick College)
Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth (The University of Texas at Austin)
Kathryn Harlan-Gran (Cornell University)
Kevin Pyon (Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg)
Elizabeth Sotelo (University of Oregon)

Presiding
Bradley Fest (Hartwick College)

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Links in the Time of Coronavirus, Vol. 24: February 16–March 15, 2022

Ukraine (Ordered by Date of Appearance)

Alexander Gabuev, “On Why Vladimir Putin and His Entourage Want War.”

Edward Wong, Julian E. Barnes, and Anton Troianovski, “US Says Russia Has a List of Ukrainians to Kill or Detain after an Invasion.”

Anton Troianovski, “Moscow Orders Troops to Ukraine’s Separatist Regions after Putin Recognizes Their Independence.”

“Ukrainian Officials Report Missile Attacks in Kyiv.”

Mike McIntire and Michael Forsythe, “Putin Faces Sanctions, but His Assets Remain an Enigma.”

Peter Baker, “Biden and Putin, Children of the Cold War, Face Off in New Conflict.”

Emma Ashford, “It’s Official: The Post-Cold War Era Is Over.”

Manveen Rana, “Volodymyr Zelensky Survives Three Assassination Attempts in Days.”

Michael Schwirtz, Andrew E. Kramer and Michael Levenson, “Russian Forces Pound Civilians, as Putin Likens Sanctions to a ‘Declaration of War.'”

Michael D. Shear, “Biden Bans Oil Imports from Russia, Calling It a ‘Blow to Putin’s War Machine.'”


Nuclear and Environmental

James M. Acton, “The Most Immediate Nuclear Danger in Ukraine Isn’t Chernobyl.”

David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “Putin Declares a Nuclear Alert, and Biden Seeks De-Escalation.”

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Links in the Time of Coronavirus, Vol. 23: January 16–February 15, 2022

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Nuclear and Environmental

Henry Fountain, “An Extraordinary Iceberg Is Gone, but Not Forgotten.”

Jacob Blumenfeld, “Climate Barbarism: Adapting to a Wrong World.”

Joshua Rothman, “Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality?”


Ukraine

The New York Times, “Moscow Is Pessimistic about Reaching Accord with US on Ukraine, but Talk Continues.”

Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper, “US Battles Putin by Disclosing His Next Possible Moves.”

And Max Fisher, “On Ukraine, US, and Russia Wage Signaling War to Avert Actual War.”


Coronavirus

Apoorva Mandavilli, “Yes, Omicron Is Loosening Its Hold. But the Pandemic Has Not Ended.”

Steven Kurutz, “Too Young to Feel So Old.”

Alexander Provan, “The Great Equalizer” (from June 2020).

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Links in the Time of Coronavirus, Vol. 22: December 16, 2021–January 15, 2022

January 15, 2022

Nuclear and Environmental

Elizabeth Weil, “California’s Forever Fire.”

Bill McKibben, “The Year in Climate.”

Jeff Goodell, “‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All.”

John Levi Barnard, Stephanie Foote, Jessica Hurley, and Jeffrey Insko, eds. “Infrastructures of Emergency,” special issue, part 2, Resilience 8, no. 3 (Fall 2021).

Rebecca Evans, “Is Geoengineering the Only Solution?: Exploring Climate Crisis in Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock.”

Jack Healy and Mike Baker, “As Miners Chase Clean-Energy Minerals, Tribes Fear a Repeat of the Past.”

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Links in the Time of Coronavirus, Vol. 21: November 16–December 15, 2021

Kentucky Tornado 2021

Nuclear and Environmental

The New York Times, “Postcards from a World on Fire.”

Keith Collins, Josh Williams, Denise Lu, “Before and after the Tornado: Devastation in a Historic Neighborhood.”

David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “As China Speeds Up Nuclear Arms Race, the US Wants to Talk.”

Graham Readfearn, “Ocean Scientists Call for Global Tracking of Oxygen Loss That Causes Dead Zones.”

April Anson, “American Apocalyptic: A Conversation with Jessica Hurley.”

Douglas Dowland, review of Infrastructures of Apocalypse: Literature and the Nuclear Complex, by Jessica Hurley.

Matt Williams, “A Sun-Like Star Just Blasted Out a Flare That Would Be Devastating If It Happened Here.”

And Ben Smith, “A Comedy Nails the Media Apocalypse.”

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Links in the Time of Coronavirus, Vol. 16: June 16–July 15, 2021

Heat Dome over Pacific Northwest, Summer 2021

Nuclear and Environmental

Kai Heron, “Extinction Isn’t the Worst That Can Happen.”

Christopher Flavelle and Kalen Goodluck, “Dispossessed, Again: Climate Change Hits Native Americans Especially Hard.”

Sarah Miller, “All the Right Words on Climate Have Already Been Said.”

Brad Plumer, Jack Healy, Winston Choi-Schagrin, and Henry Fountain, “Climate Change Batters the West before Summer Even Begins.”

Jeffrey Insko, “Line 5: Dismantling as World-Building” and “How to Dream beyond Oil.”

Jon Hay, review of Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex, by Jessica Hurley.

James Temple, “The Lurking Threat to Solar Power’s Growth.” Hmm.

Dan Egan, “The Climate Crisis Haunts Chicago’s Future: A Battle between a Great City and a Great Lake.”

Jacob Darwin Hamblin, The Wretched Atom: America’s Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology.

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Links in the Time of Coronavirus, Vol. 15: May 16–June 15, 2021

Nuclear and Environmental

Coral Davenport, “The Keystone XL Pipeline Project Has Been Terminated.”

Nadja Popovich, “How Severe Is the Western Drought? See For Yourself.”

Dan Sinykin, “The End of the World as We Know It.”

Clifford Krauss and Peter Eavis, “Climate Activists Defeat Exxon in Push for Clean Energy.”

Stanley Reed and Claire Moses, “A Dutch Court Rules That Shell Must Step Up Its Climate Change Efforts.”

Lisa Friedman, “Biden Administration Defends Huge Alaska Oil Drilling Project.”

Paquito Bernard, “It’s Time to Tackle Climate Change in all University Disciplines.”


Coronavirus

Morgan Meis, “Timothy Morton’s Hyper-Pandemic.”

The Editorial Board of the New York Times, “America Is Failing Its Moral Test on Vaccines.”

Michael D. Shear, Julian E. Barnes, Carl Zimmer and Benjamin Mueller, “Biden Orders Intelligence Inquiry into Origins of Virus.”

Zeynep Tufekci, “Checking Facts Even If One Can’t.”

Apoorva Mandavilli, “Immunity to the Coronavirus May Persist for Years, Scientists Find.”

And Alexa Lardieri, “Florida, Alabama No Longer Reporting Daily Coronavirus Data.”

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