Alex Sayf Cummings's Blog, page 12
March 12, 2021
Neoliberalism with a Stick of Gum: The Meaning of the 1980s Baseball Card Boom
Before beanie babies and Pogs, small rectangles of cardboard were the errant investments of a stratifying American society.
March 10, 2021
In My House, There Are Many Manchins
In a time of revolutionary change, the wet socks of the past are still piled higher and heavier on our chests. Yet politics is back at square one.
February 19, 2021
The Current Republic of Suffering
Drew Gilpin Faust's celebrated 2008 study of Civil War trauma mirrors the ever widening scope of our contemporary tragedy.
February 16, 2021
It Takes One to No One
In times of chaos, sometimes we look back to things like math and grammar for solace.
February 12, 2021
Catastrophe and Utopia: Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Ministry for the Future’
Robinson's "baggy monster" of a novel offers a daring and kaleidoscopic view of how humanity might actually grapple with impending climate catastrophe.
February 6, 2021
Klete Keller is not an aberration. USA swimming has a racism problem.
Making excuses for the Olympic swimmer who stormed the Capitol only serves to disguise the corrosive whiteness of US swimming.
January 20, 2021
The Caning of Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate: White Supremacist Violence in Pen and Pixels
One wonders how Winslow Homer would have chosen to depict our own seditious imbroglio.
January 13, 2021
Josh Hawley Is Not the First Missouri Senator with Blood on His Hands
The Bleeding Kansas parallels with our current moment get weirder and darker, as legal historian Steven Lubet explains.
December 31, 2020
What Made 2020 Slightly Bearable for the Tropics of Meta Gang, the Scariest of All Gangs
The best books, movies, music and other bullshit of 2020, according to our writers and editors.
December 29, 2020
The Power of the Endless Love for Automobiles
The pandemic might have pointed the way to a less car-centric future, Murray Browne argues, but the emotional attachment to cars remains.
