Weekly Round-Up (28 Nov 2016)

This is the fourteenth in a series that brings together the articles, reviews, interviews and miscellany that has caught my eye over the past seven days. Including: Toni Morrison offers her take on the US election; a new edition of Barthes Studies hits the virtual shelves (free-of-charge); and a look at poet Arthur Rimbaud’s little-known work behind the camera. Take a look, and feel free to share!

Literature, Poetry, Theatre

• Dear Mr. Beckett: Letters From The Publisher
• When Samuel Beckett was asked to name his Book of the Year…
• Anthony Roche reviews Beckett Letters (IV)
• Volume 2 of Barthes Studies, ‘Roland Barthes and Poetry’ (guest-edited by Calum Gardner), is now online
• Deborah Levy picks the best books of 2016
• Acting Out: International Flann O’Brien Conference
• Toni Morrison weighs in on the US Election
• Unseen H. G. Wells ghost story published for first time
• Read a free chapter from The New Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot by Jason Harding
• A free look inside Cambridge University Press’ collection on Literature and Religion
• Available now: the first dedicated study of James Joyce‘s preoccupation with betrayal
• The Film J. D. Salinger Nearly Made
• Costa book award 2016 shortlists dominated by female writers
• “One must withdraw for a time from life in order to set down that picture.” — John Steinbeck
• Arthur Rimbaud: a poet, traveler, adventurer, smuggler, he was also a photographer
• Dwight Garner on Paul Muldoon‘s selected poems: “powerful . . . filled with catharses you didn’t know you needed”
• Margaret Atwood longlisted for 2017 International Dublin Literary Award
• “When a novel is finished I have always the impression that I have not succeeded.” — Georges Simenon
• How Trump’s outburst at the cast of Hamilton ignores theater’s history as a site of resistance & dissent

Art, Design, Photography

• The Poster Art of Hans Hillmann
• 1970s New York City looked a lot different
• From Caravaggios to King Tut’s tomb, Factum Arte wants to preserve the world’s masterpieces—by making exact copies
• A fan of Saul Bass? Learn about Elaine Bass, his wife & collaborator
• Arthur Rimbaud: a poet, traveler, adventurer, smuggler, he was also a photographer

Philosophy & Theory

• Volume 2 of Barthes Studies, ‘Roland Barthes and Poetry’ (guest-edited by Calum Gardner), is now online
• How many of these 40 new feminists classics have you read?
• Four Futures: Life After Capitalism review – will robots bring utopia or terror?

Music

• Kate Bush‘s first shows in 35 years, “designed as a live piece of theater,” will be released as a live album
• Keith Jarrett talks with Alyn Shipton about the highlights of his recording career
• Jazz Great Charlie Haden‘s music takes on even greater relevance today…

Film & TV

• Watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the influential German Expressionist film (1920)
• The Poster Art of Hans Hillmann
• How The Simpsons has become much more than a silly cartoon about a bright yellow family
• Why Sci-Fi Keeps Imagining the Subjugation of White People
• Peter Sellers as the US President in Dr. Strangelove (1964), still “brilliant, bleak, and terrifyingly on the mark”
• Dr. Strangelove was to have its world premiere on this day in 1963. Stanley Kubrick noted in red ink why it was cancelled.
• The Film J. D. Salinger Nearly Made
• A fan of Saul Bass? Learn about Elaine Bass, his wife & collaborator

News & Politics

• Toni Morrison weighs in on the US Election
• The neglected history of black Britain

Miscellaneous

• CFP: Twentieth-Century British Periodicals
• The QWERTY layout of your keyboard may seem random, but it isn’t. Here’s the story behind this design