From Mediations, Nicholas Brown (UIC): One, Two, Many Ends of Literature; Imre Szeman (McMaster): Marxist Literary Criticism, Then and Now; Neil Larsen (UC-Davis): Literature, Immanent Critique, and the Problem of Standpoint; and Leerom Medovoi (PSU): The Biopolitical Unconscious: Toward an Eco-Marxist Literary Theory. From Human Affairs, Istvan Danka (HEA): Practical Knowledge Versus Knowledge as Practice; and Emil Visnovsky (SAS): The "Practice Turn" in the Contemporary Socio-Human Sciences. It's been striking to see Christian Right wedge issues almost entirely disappear from Gov. Rick Perry's bag of political tricks as he runs for his third term — but fear not, ye Godly bigots of Texas! A review of The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes It Hard to Be Happy by Michael Foley. Gerald Howard reviews Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney by Marion Meade. How the Christian Coalition and MoveOn helped save the Internet together: An excerpt from Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times by Paul Rogat Loeb (and more). Months after declaring independence, Kosovo is no longer in open warfare, but it remains a region of abject poverty, black markets, blood feuds and missing people. From Forbes, a look at the quirkiest cultural practices from around the world. From Adbusters, Douglas Haddow on the coming barbarism: Gen Y is the greatest threat to consumer capitalism yet; and Micah M. White on the birth of altermodern: Is postmodernity slipping into something new? Godfather of African publishing: In a recent memoir, British publisher James Currey looked back on a career spent introducing Western audiences to African and Arab writers, among them Tayeb Salih, Ghassan Kanafani and Naguib Mahfouz.
