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Colloquies

Holocaust Remembrance and the Ethics of Comparison

- By Michael Rothberg

This International Holocaust Remembrance Day will not be like any other. As we mark the seventy-ninth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27 and commemorate the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust alongside the Nazis’ many non-Jewish victims, the commemoration will take place against the backdrop of extraordinary events: in the midst of more than three months of catastrophic violence in Israel and Palestine and just one day after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) provisionally ruled on charges of genocide brought against Israel by South Africa. One hopes that Israel will comply with the “provisional measures” ordered by the ICJ, but even if it doesn’t, the ruling will certainly intensify scrutiny of the human costs of Israel...


Reviews

Beers for Brrr!

- By Marsha Bryant

One must have a mind of winter . . . 
—Wallace Stevens

 

Have a beer in cold weather—just see
How it counterintuitively
Warms the blood with cold fire
As the winter transpires.
If you try one of these, you’ll agree.

1.
Here’s a bottle-fermented delight,
For ’tis Trappist and English bedight
With rich, flavorful malts
That Tynt Meadow exalts
With a sweetness and spice that’s just right.

2.
A DIPA for winter? Hell yes!
The trifecta of flavors so bless-
edly blends hops with spruce,
And spiced pear brings a boost
To this Bone Chill—cool brew, I profess....


Interviews

Naming Stars: An Interview with Andrés N. Ordorica

- By J Brooke

As someone who has dealt with immense loss and lives with long-term grief, I cannot say I relish books exploring the topic. Five years after losing our twenty-four-year-old trans son, I am less triggered by storylines dealing with dying young, than I am bored by them. My grief, the steady rhythmic bassline of my days, thankfully offers no surprises; the gray ache never evaporates, but it also rarely spikes. Articles, poems, and books abound painting bright lights extinguished prematurely. And while often beautiful examples of writing, these works do little to color in my gray. Those living with grief probably know what I’m referring to—those who don’t, consider yourselves lucky. Reading ...


blog

On Balsam Karam’s The Singularity, tr. Saskia Vogel

- By Vika Mujumdar

A Review of The Singularity by Balsam Karam, Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel (Feminist Press, January 2024)

Split into three parts, all formally different, Balsam Karam, in The Singularity, writes a lyrical, moving, formally inventive narrative of motherhood in the wake of loss—of child, of home, of self. In the first part, a mother searches for her lost daughter; in the second, another woman must give birth to a baby that is stillborn; in the third, the second woman grapples with her own history of belonging to the nation as she reflects on her own displacement from her home to this unnamed nation. With a narrative focus that moves between timeframes,...



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