Dear Readers
I have started a Substack to communicate with interested readers about my progress on the Musil Biography. I will keep this blog up as...
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"A Place, Not a Refuge": Beautiful, Illuminating Review by Katie Peterson of What Remains in LA Review of Books
"The poem critiques certainty itself—certainty, that hallmark of bad authority, dictators, and thugs. For Arendt, poetry was a place to...
Samantha Rose Hill and I spoke with Poets.org about the Translation of Arendt's What Remains
You can read the interview here: https://lithub.com/snapshots-in-verse-on-hannah-arendts-long-lost-poems/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=...
Musil's Writing Block
Musil suffered tremendously from writer's block. One time he supposedly put a blanket over his desk and circled it, smoking, for days....
Some Old Musil in English for the First Time
In researching what Walter Fanta calls the "Entstehungsgeschichte" (history of origin) of Musil's The Man Without Qualities, I returned...
Review of Literature and Politics
An interesting review of my translation of Amann's/Musil's Literature and Politics. The author, who seems to blame Musil for not fighting...
Two Musil Events in April and May
On April 14th, in Vermont: As part of Public Philosophy Week, I will be giving a talk at the fabulous Outer Spice Cafe on Route Two...
"Attempts to Find Another Human Being" through the Science of Perception: Musil, Nietzsche, Mach, and More
Young Musil flippantly noted in his journal that he had given up on reading Kant, but was doing just fine nevertheless. Is it really...
The 9 Lives of Robert Musil
As most of you know, I am writing the first English-language biography of Robert Musil for Yale University Press. Here is a review I...
Honoring Burton Pike
One of my former fellow students from CUNY Graduate Center had the brilliant idea about a year and a half ago to make a Festschrift for...
The Unadorned Life is Not Worth Living: Review of Van de Velde Essays !
My review of the fascinating collection of the essays of Henry van de Velde, translated from the French and German by Elizabeth Tucker...
Post-Partum Publication Vicissitudes
Writing and publishing a book can induce all manner of feelings and anxieties. For me, the publication of Portals: Reflections on the...
Winter Thinking Diary
Last year I kept a "thinking diary" through to Spring, and it has just been published on Berfrois. If you care to read my thinking, which...
Reading & Book Signing for Pig Years & Portals
Join us on Sunday, November the 6th from 1:30 t0 3:30 at the Plainfield Opera House for a double reading & book launch for Ellyn Gaydos'...
Robert Musil: Literature & Politics (Excerpts)!
Some excerpts from my forthcoming Musil translation may be read in Issue 5 of Socrates on Beach: https://socratesonthebeach.com/robert-mu...
Two New Musil Books Forthcoming!
Forthcoming from Contra Mundum Press: my translation of Robert Musil: Literature and Politics, by Klaus Amann and Robert Musil, edited...
Impossibilities, Probabilities, Atrocities, Humanity: Responding to the War in Ukraine
We mostly live as if the "impossible" can't happen, at least not to us. A persistent denial that buoys us up over our usually small...
"Subjectivity is the Precondition for Knowledge": Mind Meets World
When we attempt to understand the world, sometimes we go so deep in, following so many idiosyncratic threads, stitching in so many...
"15 Questions"
I was asked to do this interview with "15 Questions," a Berlin-based online magazine that mostly features interviews with very...
Review of Thomas Harrison's New Book: Of Bridges: A Poetical & Philosophical Account
https://www.ronslate.com/on-of-bridges-a-poetic-and-philosophical-account-by-thomas-harrison/ I had the pleasure of reviewing Thomas...
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