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.


 

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Returning to Order through Realism
Law and Order is the familiar rallying cry for a generation of contemporary right-wing politicians from Poland and Turkey to Brazil and the USA. In the context of such a political program, difference, change, and cultural others must be avoided as disruptions of the safety that order is supposed to represent.
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The Problem of Sancho's Shit
Are there limits to the pursuit of realism in fiction? For Cervantes, at least, those limits are to be found somewhere in between three hundred goats and the bodily needs of Sancho Panza. 
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Against Hate: "Hello, Brother" (V)
In the wake of the massacre in New Zealand, a reflection on the need to confront hatred, to come together as one human community and to learn that our difference is the formative experience of existence on earth.
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Texting Under Drone-Crossed Skies
How has the experience of being a refugee changed in a world of drones, 24-hour live news feeds, and text messages that zip across the globe in seconds? How does contemporary fiction capture the contradictions of being a refugee in a hyperconnected 21st century?
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The Fourth and Fifth Waves
Is today's "fourth wave" feminist movement really a "fifth wave"? We can't understand the inclusiveness, confidence, and playful spirit of today's protest movement without appreciating the wave of community-building that took place in girls' internet fan culture starting around 2000. 
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Is Arab Middle Class Literature under Siege?
Can literature widden the scope of our understanding of the nations of the Middle East away from Orientalism and ISIS to include the struggle of a middle class that continues to fight for reform in the region?