(Action Comics. #363. DC Comics. May 1968.) In the spring of 1968 Superman contracted “Virus X,” a disease cooked up by Lex Luthor in a prison laboratory. The #363 issue of DC’s Action Comics serial told a four-part story of a viral attack on the hero from planet Krypton. In the comic, the devious . . .
Read MoreLate mornings in Spain are particularly grim during the COVID-19 confinement. That’s the time of the day when the entire nation listens to the daily broadcast of the COVID-19 press conference. One hour of densely packed updates: new death and infection counts, modeled predictions, new confinement measures, social initiatives. . . Every . . .
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(Photo: Nicoletta Dosio in Torino, March 30, 2020. La Stampa) March 31, 2020 My cousin Mario has told me about our Grandmother Emma’s memories of the so-called Spanish flu. Between 1918 and 1920, it killed tens of thousands of people across the world, a world that, at the time, had a total population . . .
Read MoreI haven’t left my house since February, but now I’ll have to do it. I have to get to a bank machine. Yes, even in these dark times of COVID-19, we Italians still get fined by mail. I’ll pay up, but you should know that I happen to have a philosopher for . . .
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Modern society, as Byung Chul Han, incisively points out, is a “burnout society,” for it is driven and governed by the unequal structures of capitalism and its deep desire to immunize itself from others—races, cultures, nations—thus making a palpable distinction between the self and the other, the known and the unknown, the . . .
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Painting: “I am Joy” by Omileye Achikeobi-Lewis. Part of the Peace Am I series. Three days into my own family’s version of self-quarantining, I began seeing headlines claiming the drug hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) might lessen the effects and viral load of COVID-19. Plaquenil is the most commonly prescribed drug for Lupus patients. Lupus is a chronic, auto-immune . . .
Read MoreIncreased xenophobia, greater marginalisation of workers I am interested in examining not what has been done or not done to tackle the Covid-19 threat, but what its consequences might be – apart from the immediate one, which is the tragic loss of lives and livelihoods. One of the long-term consequences of the . . .
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(Editor’s note: What follows is indeed the latest in our “Next Best Thing” series, introducing you to people and events that you’ll wish you hadn’t missed. In this case, though, you’ve been granted a second chance: Karen Skolfield will be reading this weekend, as part of LitFest at Amherst College. Saturday at . . .
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Secchia’s Flood – Soliera, Modena, Italy – December 12, 2017. Photo by Giorgio Galeotti, Courtesy of Creative Commons. (Editor’s note: With this post from the Italian novelist Giacomo Sartori, the Massachusetts Review inaugurates “After Us,” a new blog series that will focus on the climate crisis and the ongoing, devastating toll wrought . . .
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