Micah Mattix

Unlike poets , critical theorists sometime need a little help from computer programs to let language write them. Hence, this nifty little tool from the University of Chicago . Now everyone can write nonsensical sentences with no graduate school required! Via: Alan Jacobs . . . . Continue Reading »

A few weeks ago, David Mills mentioned The City . The fall issue is now out. To whet your appetite: Matt Milliner discusses the two art worlds, Jay Richards writes on Christianity and socialism, and Albert Mohler reviews Christian Smith. Read it here . . . . . Continue Reading »

“For a crowd is not a company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.” (From “Of Friendship,” The Essays ) . . . . Continue Reading »

Over the past few days, poet Thomas Sayers Ellis has posted “Ten Rules for Changing the Game of Poetry” to his Facebook profile. (The full list can be found here .) Ellis’s ten rules actually reveal a lot about the state of poetry today. Apparently it’s necessary to tell poets . . . . Continue Reading »

Like me , Caspar Melville is bored with New Atheism . It has been good for some things, Melville writes, like creating copy for journalists and arguing against odious “Christian religious fundamentalism.” Regarding the latter: The origins of the New Atheists’ impulse, according to . . . . Continue Reading »

I was bored with Hawking’s statement about God before he even made it, but this zinger from Richard Lea at The Guardian is worth sharing. Reminding us that Hawking has far outsold his fellow scientists who have tried their hand at trade books precisely because of “his willingness to . . . . Continue Reading »

Outing overrated writers is a favorite pastime of critics everywhere, and this summer particularly so. First there was Gabriel Josipivici’s attack in The Guardian on Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes. They exhibit a “petty-bourgeois uptightness,” a . . . . Continue Reading »

Ayn Rand acolyte, Nick Newcomen, has driven 12,328 miles with a GPS tracking device on to spell out “Read Ayn Rand” . According to The Guardian , “Newcomen took about 10 days to complete each word, turning on his GPS logger when he wanted to write and turning it off between . . . . Continue Reading »

Adam Kirsch, whose poetry I admire, has a surprisingly muddled argument on the value of great books for world leaders in a recent article for The New Republic . Responding to Charles Hill’s argument in Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order that great books tutor leaders in . . . . Continue Reading »

Last month I received the latest issue of PMLA (the Publication of the Modern Language Association) that included a lead article with the title, “Queer Ecology.” Why I’m still a member, I’m not sure. What is queer ecology? Well, it’s the latest literary theory that . . . . Continue Reading »