I wrote for the London Review of Books about crackdowns on student protest, universities, open letters, and free speech.

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘The liminal terrain of Gulag medicine complicates the popular binary between “perpetrators” and “victims” in states that use terror against their citizens. Drawing a firm line between the two categories is almost impossible.’

Sheila Fitzpatrick: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

Rare outing in the London Review of Books's excellent Belgrano series for 'spitchered', which according to the OED is derived from the Maltese 'spiċċa' (finished)
pca.st/episode/0a9414…

‘I am now in my late seventies, and though not obsessively valetudinarian, I’m aware that I might be looking for the last time at some of my favourite pictures.’

Julian Barnes on art and memory: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘When Clement Attlee moved to introduce charges for prescriptions and dentistry in 1951, Nye Bevan resigned from the cabinet. Practically the whole of the current political establishment is united in opposition to his ideals.’

Michael Chessum: lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/may/…

Here we’d only be exposed,
or else dismiss the evidence, string trinkets
from inexplicably placed picture hooks,
like orphaned aspirations …
What’s there to know?

‘Waters of Leith’, a poem by Sam Riviere: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

For London Review of Books I wrote about Zineb Sedira’s exhibition Dreams Have No Titles, Whitechapel Gallery for another couple of days. lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/may/…

‘The influence of Lacan's ideas on art, artists and art criticism has been so pervasive that on walking round the show it becomes clear that we have been attending Lacan-themed exhibitions for decades.’

Francis Gooding on Lacan and visual art:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘If you pay a landlord £1000 a month in rent, and he, after months of pleading, does a £50 bodge-job on your broken boiler, is he “investing” in the flat in an exciting way that’s great news for Britain?’

James Meek on the trouble with Thames Water:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘The Dallas Penn I knew was always figuring out new ways to use the internet, blogging and vlogging (about Ghetto Big Macs, bodegas, baseball stadiums, sneakers) before blogging or vlogging were much of a thing.’

Alex Abramovich on the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/may/…

‘Protest is a mode of public speech, which – like free discussion – is vital to democracy.’

Amia Srinivasan on open letters and campus protests, online early from our next issue.
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

Enjoyed John Kerrigan in London Review of Books on the collected Seamus Heaney letters - isn’t the point that Heaney never wrote a letter without intending its eventual publication, which accounts for that performative quality which enraged Derek Mahon? lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Lagos is really a backdrop for black American debates about Africa.’

Sean Jacobs on pan-African cultural festivals as seen through American eyes:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Then as now, history itself is a fabrication. People’s tales conflict; their perspectives differ; they make things up to suit themselves.’

Fara Dabhoiwala on the unreliable story of an 18th-century shipwreck:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

Join the 𝘓𝘙𝘉 at this year’s Hay Festival on 1 June for ‘The Last Days of Franz Kafka’, a one-off performance marking the centenary of the writer’s death, with readings from Toby Jones and music by Max Richter.

Tickets here: hayfestival.com/p-21848-the-la…

everything I hear and read about UCLA last week is totally surreal and terrifying lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/may/…

‘Although they had pledged not to undermine the Geneva Agreement the Americans immediately set about doing so.’

Chris Mullin on Dien Bien Phu and how the Americans ruined Vietnam’s bid for independence:
lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/may/…

‘She herself was the original of the peculiar children and the childlike voices that recur in her later writing.’

Rosemary Hill Rosemary Hill on Barbara Comyns:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘For all the times he went viral, Penn never really cashed in. He mostly worked in construction, volunteering at Ground Zero in the wake of 9/11.’

Alex Abramovich remembers the New York podcaster and blogger Dallas Penn, who died last week, aged 53:
lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/may/…

The Past Present Future podcast continues its investigation of bad ideas, with Dr Adam Rutherford joining David Runciman to discuss Linnaean taxonomy: precursor of scientific racism, social stratification and search engine optimisation. Listen here: linktr.ee/PPFIdeas