Literary Extravagance
Public Discontent & The Trap of a Technocrat. That is the subheadline in a 2025 article by Brian Connelly. “The technocrat’s trap,” he wrote, “refers to inherent issues of governing…
How to Make a Judge Angry
Photo: a marble bust of Cicero “The existence of a man of immense authority whose anger has political currency threatens the survival of the Republic.” No, this is not a…
Modern Revolutions Crave a Leviathan
This book by Dan Edelstein (Professor of French at Stanford Univ.) surveys the concept of what a revolution meant from ancient to recent times. A key finding he makes is…
Applying Comics Theory to Ancient texts
Over the centuries, the texts that have been rescued by time from ancient Greece and Rome have been studied in many ways. As human ingenuity is never lacking, Natalie Swain…
Feel my forehead: that’s my brain working!
The headline is a quote from a character in a play being staged in Austin this month. The brain has to do a lot of work to really understand it,…
Homer’s Iliad 2.0
Anyone with even a passing interest in ancient Greece, or the foundation of Western literature, has read Homer’s Iliad. That original, from the mists of time more than 4,000 years…
Concerning Levels of Horniness: Burlesque in Austin
Burlesque has a long history, and it is very much alive in Austin. As a comedic and exaggerated stage performance originating in Europe four centuries ago, it became popular in…
The Tragedy of Queen Caroline
Queen Caroline was custom-made for the finest caricaturists who ever lived. Her husband, King George IV, decided to charge her with adultery shortly after becoming king in January 1820. The…
He knows everything in the world about Milton!
My headline is taken from a novel by Virginia Woolf (pictured here). In Mrs Dalloway (1925), the character named in the title is “someone who can’t understand the pleasures of…
THE WORLD WAS AT STAKE: Churchill and De Gaulle
In the changing fortunes of fate, Charles de Gaulle “has become a unifying force in France. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, is now a figure of controversy again.” How…