Book Reviews

Movements fly, ascending, descending, ebbing, shifting, with overlapping stories building on each other, ideas crashing across borders. This is what I thought of when I heard about Christophe Broqua’s study Action = Vie: A History of AIDS Activism and Gay Politics in France, the English translation of his history of ACT UP Paris, by Jean-Yves…

One of the more annoying products of the four Trump years has been a certain genre of very lamentable journalism in which legacy media platforms seek to understand, and come to terms, and even empathize, with Trump’s supporters. Often appearing in high-end outlets like the New York Times, these articles – such as an egregious…

Apparent antitheses between Anthropology and Psychoanalysis are not difficult to adduce. Since its 19th Century stirrings, Anthropology has been committed to illuminating the multiplicity encompassed within the category of “the human.” This dedication to difference has typically pivoted on the concept of culture, that universal that is only ever particular. Psychoanalysis, by contrast, treats a…

Mark Harris’ fine biography of Mike Nichols, upon publication, was getting more media attention than the Trump impeachment hearings – almost. Harris comes well prepared to deliver a detailed, precise, well-formed and innovative study. He does not scrimp on the detail, which can be, I confess, rather exhausting. Indeed as exhausting as the indefatigable Nichols…

We cannot choose the life into which we are born. Part of our human trajectory involves coming to terms with our biological and social legacies. It is poignant, then, to witness the efforts of parents risking everything to imbue choice into the genetic lives of their offspring.  It is this human desire, this wish for…