Interventions

Welcome to Interventions, an experimental space where authors rehearse new ideas, reframe questions, or play unbridled within Arcade’s field of the humanities in the world. These short posts embrace the incomplete, the imperfect, and the indeterminate, but they may become much more: for example, the record of a thinker’s turn toward a new paradigm or the rough draft of a chapter in a new book. Rapid publication and immediate responses permit Interventions to foster conversation. The tone of the posts may range from personal to political, while maintaining a critical edge. 

Published regularly, Interventions are often freestanding contributions to Arcade, but some may join our feature called Colloquies. Inquiries and submissions are received by the editor of Interventions.


 

Every Now and Then I Fall Apart
With the help of Bonnie Tyler's 1983 #1 hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” I'm still trying to figure out what differentiates Adorno from what he calls cultural critics in "Cultural Criticism and Society."  
On Language Study
This piece, "The Real Reasons to Support Language Study," published July 27, 2009 in The Chronicle of Higher Education, is particularly relevant given the recent announcement by UCLA to issue lay-off letters to its state-funded, "post-six" lecturers.
A Poet, an Empress, and the Sublime
One way to fight an addiction is to try to substitute a second, healthier activity for the baleful one.  Lately, during the evenings, to prevent myself from playing World of Warcraft, I have been translating Russian verse. 
Slow Reading
In Italian, when you say someone’s email address (chris dot warley at utoronto dot ca), instead of “at” you say “chiocciola,” which means snail, because @ sort of looks like a snail.
Sensual Poetics
Pornographic literature is dismissed as an oxymoron by many scholars because we expect ‘literature’ to imply form, while the endless repetition of unproblematic sex acts denies us the comforting format of beginning, middle, and end.
Resisting Tragedy and Satire in Don Quixote
As I teach Don Quixote once again, I am struck by how difficult it is to avoid converting the book into either a tragedy or a satire.  Auerbach should provide a remedy, but his discussion of the novel's "gay wisdom" does not seem to speak to students.