The Sunday dozen
John Wyver writes: My usual compendium of links to stuff that this week has caught my eye and engaged my brain. My header image is of Collage for Losing the Garden, 2026, oil on paper, from the glorious exhibition ‘Garden without Seasons’ of recent work by Clare Woods that opened this week (until 8 November) at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery. Beautiful paintings, collages and screenprints, beautifully displayed in beautiful spaces.
I wasn’t sure whether to highlight the Odyssey articles that Bluesky at least has been buzzing about all week. You have probably read some, or all, of them already, but they are so interesting, and I think so revealing about contemporary culture, that I have brought together the key ones.
- An uncomplicated man: peerless translator of Homer Emily Wilson kicked things off for the LRB [£; limited free access]with this response to Christopher Nolan’s film, which was widely taken to be a takedown. Which in many ways it is, but it is also richer and more complex than that…
- Nolan vs Homer: … and in this LRB podcast discussion with Thomas Jones, Wilson is considerably more nuanced – and fascinating.
- Artful weaving: the week’s other substantial response to the film is Daniel Mendelsohn’s essay for NY Review of Books [also £; limited free access], which provides context from Nolan’s earlier work.
- The filmography that launched a thousand ships: this for LA Review of Books by assistant professor of classics at Yale Benedek Kruchió is also worth your time.
- I’m a classicist. Were Emily Wilson and I watching the same Odyssey movie?: Theo Nash for Slate lines up for the defence.
- How Emily Wilson’s takedown of The Odyssey ignited a debate: others weighed in too, including Joyce Carol Oates, and then came the ‘meta’ articles about the exchanges, including this by Neil Vigdor for The New York Times [gift article].
- ‘Homer is for everyone’: how Emily Wilson elucidates & obfuscates in equal measure: and if you’re in the market for more, Olivia Emily for Country and Town House has a lovely reading list from Emily Wilson.
• The eternal return: The Battle of Algiers at 60: Senses of Cinema published its latest issue this week, including this rich response to Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece by Salvador Carrasco.
• The soothing unsubtlety of UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun: Paul Thompson for The Paris Review adds another chapter to the fascinating (to me, at least) saga of the strange and sinister dance troupe.
• Minor keys and major unrest: Madeleine Seidel’s stimulating reflections for MUBI on the state of video art at the 61st Venice Biennale.
• Life reflected back, loud and clear: this week also saw a new issue of Tate Papers, the cultural institution’s online research journal. Titled Voice/s in the Museum, it explores ‘how interpretation can address the complex expectations placed on museums in an age of heightened political focus.’ I found this essay by Sam McGuire about audience-focused interpretation really helpful.
• The historian as detective – Carlo Ginzburg and the search for ‘clues’: Stuart Elden at Progressive Geographies pays tribute to the late great historian.
• David Harvey’s masterclass in Marx: an appreciation by Max Holleran for The New Republic of the 90-year-old academic geographer and his latest book, The Story of Capital: What Everyone Should Know About How Capital Works, available in the UK from Verso.
• Rewiring the State – Cabinet Statement: not exactly light reading, and perhaps of fairly specialist interest, but this is a major policy statement by and about our government, and should be of concern to us all.
• How grief tech is reimagining Victorian spiritualism: Jessica Lloyd May for The Conversation:
AI grief tech is developing to patch the holes that bereavement leaves – and clearly when so much remains of a person’s life, a spirit photo will no longer do. These systems, known as griefbots, AI ghosts, deathbots or postmortem avatars, offer services from text interaction to phone calls to full video calls.
• What if we can never trust AI?: this is the tagline for Joshua Rothman’s latest for The New Yorker [£; limited free access]: ‘Like humans, the technology will never be perfect. The question is what imperfections we’re willing to tolerate.’
• why businesses lie about AI: Cory Doctorow is currently publishing must-read pieces more or less every day, and this is a very fine example:
The world is full of people who insist that “AI is changing everything” but who – when pressed – have to admit that what they mean is that they’re pretty sure that AI will change everything. Eventually. After we allow it to consume all the planet’s energy, carbon, water and financial resources.
Maybe,
• Queuing for Bob: Luke McKernan charmingly recalls how he purchased a ticket for one of Dylan’s Earls Court concerts in 1978; I have to admit I turned up on one of the nights and bought one from a tout outside.
• And finally… ‘One More Cup of Coffee’: not from 1978, but Bob filmed three years earlier for Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story:
Leave a Reply