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.

Image by Byron Browne; Graphic Design by Sheena Lai

Towards a Just Memory: Remembering Survivors of Sexual Violence through Memorials

Lin Li

In September 2017, a memorial dedicated to survivors of the "comfort women" system was unveiled in downtown San Francisco. As the largest modern sexual slavery system, the "comfort women" system was created and overseen by the Imperial Japanese Government between 1931 and 1945.

Trans;form Response: Saqer Almarri’s “Identities of a Single Root: The Triad of the Khuntha, Mukhannath, and Khanith”

Mixed forms are crucial not only to the understanding of khuntha, mukhannath, and khanith communities, but also to the very scaffolding of Almarri’s paper.

Earliest Gestures

Can you recall your earliest gesture? Perhaps not consciously, but traces of these first attempts to orient our bodies in space linger in our everyday experiences.

The Pirate as Conquistador: Plunder and Politics in the Making of the British Empire

Pirate or privateer? In practice, identical, but in terms of legal and social standing, the designations were considered worlds away in the contested waters of the North Atlantic. How did sanctioned privateering transition over time to being considered lawless pirating?

New Zealand Attack: On Bridges and Walls

In memory of the horrendous attack at the mosques in New Zealand, a defence of migrants, refugees, and a plea for moderation to confront the extremism that threatens further attacks.

Tenochtitlan Becomes Mexico: Rulers, Commoners, and the Petitioning State

After the conquest, Tenochtitlan became Mexico, but the city remained predominantly indigenous. As a viceregal capital and global commercial hub, Mexico City underwent profound changes as ethnic newcomers from Oaxaca to Manila elbowed out the Nahua from their barrios, and Aztec systems of water management survived even as dikes and canals were modified.

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.

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.

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.

Interventions

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