British Identity Interrogated in Three Films
Where Roddam’s Quadrophenia asks of British identity, “Who am I?” and Anderson’s If…. asks “Can I be myself?”, Cammell and Roeg’s Performance declares, “There is no self.”
identity
Marsha P. Johnson’s Story of Community and Solidarity
Tourmaline’s biography of Marsha P. Johnson urges readers to witness the complexity and collective power of Black trans life.
‘A Living’ and the Affirmation Work
Michael D. Stein’s A Living: Working-Class Americans Talk to Their Doctor affirms the dignity of work while refusing to reduce workers to transactions.
In Northern Ireland, Absence Makes the Heart Feel More Deeply
Writers like Jan Carson understand that, in the absence of the Troubles, people of Northern Ireland may not know who they are, culturally or artistically, or may struggle to articulate who they are without it.
A Case for Pretending: Why Identity Is a Sham and Authenticity an Illusion
The tighter we cling to any aspect of self-identity, the more we suffer and the more vital it becomes to release our grip.
Comedy Series ‘Detectorists’ Digs into the Pastoral with Humor
The comedy series Detectorists turns a humble hobby into a humorous meditation on Englishness that even Thomas Hardy would enjoy.
On Ireland’s Painful Emergence into the Modern World
Fintan O’Toole’s lucid history of Ireland, We Don’t Know Ourselves, is a vivid telling of how his country’s culture of silence and repression was broken open.
What Is Identity in Our Digital Age of ‘The Extreme Self’?
Do you look “real” in virtual space? Such existential questions are central to ‘The Extreme Self’, which explores identity in our digital world.
‘The New Woman Behind the Camera’ Exhibit Celebrates a Gaze of Her Own
The New Woman Behind the Camera, an exhibition of midcentury women photographers, captures the ways they documented a changing world and reimagined their place within it.
Between the Pages of Contemporary Asian American Literature
There’s an evolution in contemporary Asian American literature from the usual immigrant story to something more nuanced and varied, something that’s more reflective of the varieties of “Asian Americaness”.
The Dance of Male Forms in Claire Denis’ ‘Beau travail’
Claire Denis’ masterwork of cinematic poetry, Beau travail, is a cinematic ballet that tracks the sublimation of violent masculine complexes into the silent convulsions of male angst.