‘Switched on Pop’ Schools the Academy
The first book from Switched on Pop hosts Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan leans into the podcast's academic tendencies, as it makes the case for music fans to take all music a bit more seriously.
Max McKenna
Max McKenna is a writer and editor whose writing has appeared in print and online in The Journal of Modern Literature, The Millions, Full Stop, Chicago Review, Newcity, and elsewhere. He lives and works in Chicago.
A Life of False Positives: Jac Jemc’s ‘False Bingo’
The stories in Jac Jemc's False Bingo are wound tight, propelling the reader to ambiguous and nerve-wracking ends.
Nell Zink Points and Jeers in ‘Doxology’
It's deflating to find Nell Zink, a master of witty dialogue and pithy description, making so much space in Doxology for her inner cranky white liberal.
The Path in ‘Beneath My Feet’ Is Too Narrow to Follow
It would seem high time to put together an anthology of literary voices that have been marginalized in the grand tradition of walking. Beneath My Feet: Writers on Walking is not that anthology.
Joseph Scapellato’s ‘The Made-Up Man’ Brings Forth 21st Century Absurdism
In rendering his most avant-garde characters as members of a kind of self-help conspiracy in The Made-Up Man, Joseph Scapellato offers not an update but a revision of absurdism, and as such, many social phenomena ripe for satire get off easy.
Art Is a Recycling Across Generations: In Conversation with Julia Holter
As an artist who boldly blurs the line between avant-garde aesthetics and pop accessibility, Julia Holter's new album comes at us as a statement, and one that speaks to the power of her artistic journey.
Owls, Aliens, and Others
Essayist Brian Phillips is no staunch empiricist, nor does he want to shatter delusions or expose machinations. In Impossible Owls, he is content to remain in a wide-eyed and owl-ier place.
Revolution from Below: Tim Mohr’s ‘Burning Down the Haus’
There's almost a nostalgia in Mohr's book for simpler times, when tyranny was orderly and bureaucratic and when antagonists and their tools of oppression were clearly defined.
‘Novel Sounds’ and the Southern Institution’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Problem
In Novel Sounds, scholar Florence Dore is interested in how a mass cultural phenomenon like rock 'n' roll can help illuminate realities about institutionalized high culture.
Reactionary Rockism: The Dangerous Obsession with “Authenticity” in Indie Rock
We should take seriously indie rock trends driven by nostalgia— the revival of white rock forms, the whitewashing of disco and yacht rock, and the rise of normcore—as what they are: conservative gestures flying under the radar in a climate of poptimist reappraisal.