Exhausted anarchist and school abolitionist who can be found at nerdteacher.com where I muse about school and education-related things, and all my links are here. My non-book posts are mostly at @whatanerd@treehouse.systems, occasionally I hide on @whatanerd@eldritch.cafe, or you can email me at n@nerdteacher.com. [they/them]
I was a secondary literature and humanities teacher who has swapped to being a tutor, so it's best to expect a ridiculously huge range of books.
And yes, I do spend a lot of time making sure book entries are as complete as I can make them. Please send help.
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Using an impressive array of material from literature, archaeology and social theory, Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freud’s …
"Together with inker Klaus Janson and colorist Lynn Varley, writer/artist Frank Miller completely reinvents the legend of Batman in his …
"Together with inker Klaus Janson and colorist Lynn Varley, writer/artist Frank Miller completely reinvents the …
Frank Miller is not someone who I like, and I honestly think he's done more to harm visual storytelling media than... not. I don't think he's set out to do so (it's not like he can be blamed for being an influence on others), but the grim-dark method of storytelling with excessive panels and small details and a lot of text... It's a very confusing comic book to look at, and it's just... hideous. Very little pops out, many of the elements are hard to follow, and everything has a feeling of sameness. This is especially bizarre when they do try to include bright pops of colour, since it still manages to feel incredibly similar to everything else. It's... not great.
This also doesn't help when there are a lot of perspective shifts. The sameness actually makes it harder to follow than anything else.
The story itself is also... awful. …
Frank Miller is not someone who I like, and I honestly think he's done more to harm visual storytelling media than... not. I don't think he's set out to do so (it's not like he can be blamed for being an influence on others), but the grim-dark method of storytelling with excessive panels and small details and a lot of text... It's a very confusing comic book to look at, and it's just... hideous. Very little pops out, many of the elements are hard to follow, and everything has a feeling of sameness. This is especially bizarre when they do try to include bright pops of colour, since it still manages to feel incredibly similar to everything else. It's... not great.
This also doesn't help when there are a lot of perspective shifts. The sameness actually makes it harder to follow than anything else.
The story itself is also... awful. While violence doesn't innately bother me in storytelling (it's something that can be discussed within narratives), the ways violence is portrayed often come off as being... about gratification. And it's regardless of who is doing it. I also find the perception of "excessive violence" as being "more adult" a bit absurd. If anything, excessive and gratuitous violence is something that I'd stop and question as an editor of a story. What is the point of it? How does it drive the narrative or character development? Does it actually harm the story?
But Frank Miller has been known for his... I'd charitably say questionable decisions and statements on these series. And I'm not a fan of those, either. This whole thing isn't gritty; it's needless and infuriating.
The Women Incendiaries tells the often overlooked story of the crucial role played by women …
So many bits and pieces of this book are things that could be written about today, from the author's jabs at many male historians for overlooking the roles of women within movements or considering feminism as unnecessary to some of the quotes taken from the women of the Commune and their frustrations within activism and movement spaces.
It's not surprising, but it is frustrating.
Overwhelmingly, this was a good read. It focused on a history that, even among anarchists, is rarely focused on (the Paris Commune and Louise Michel may be used frequently as a symbol, but it is rarely talked about what actually happened -- the events are glossed over). But it's intriguing because it incorporates a range of nuance for the many different women it sheds light on.
The Women Incendiaries tells the often overlooked story of the crucial role played by women during the Paris Commune of …
The Women Incendiaries tells the often overlooked story of the crucial role played by women …
Other people have traditionally believed that the problem no longer exists. Women hold no interest for them except in the amatory relations—that is, they matter only as objects. Bedroom histories will always be best-sellers. Mme de Pompadour and Mme du Barry still draw attention to themselves to the tastes of the day. Mm de Staël is more interesting for her lovers than for the struggle she waged against Napoleon. Flora Tristan and Pauline Roland interest no one.
Last bit from the introduction.
The Women Incendiaries tells the often overlooked story of the crucial role played by women …
The history of women, considered as a branch of social history, is generally held to be insignificant. For "serious" historians, it deserves to be taken no more seriously than any other "lady's work." An historian of the Commune has recently written: "There will inevitably be feminine demonstrations, and they will be enacted by the petty bourgeoisie. They may be the rowdiest of all, but the essential point does not lie in that; it lies in the fact that the working women of the Commune shattered the illusion according to which the emancipation of their sex was to occur as a side effect of the class struggle." Now this emancipation is by no means an illusion. The women who today have access to intellectual professions (university professors, doctors, engineers), in the capitalist countries as well as in the socialist ones; who earn a living without a protector, either lover or husband; who are directly engaged in society—these women are infinitely more "free" than their grandmothers would have dared to dream. The liberation of woman, then, is not necessarily fused with that of the proletariat. The two do not move at the same rate. The fact that Marxist historians and bourgeois historians are in accordance on this issue proves merely that the former are as bogged down in masculine prejudice as their colleagues, although for them it is more a question of political tactics.
Also in the introduction.
The Women Incendiaries tells the often overlooked story of the crucial role played by women …
The fact that "feminism"—or rather "feminine humanism," of which feminism is merely the nineteenth century avatar—is thought today to be outmoded is a means of conjuring away the problems it posted, problems that are still very far from being solved. To confirm this one need only look at the composition of the committees that run political parties, ministerial councils, and meetings of the United Nations. Despite declarations concerning the political and social equality of men and women, this equality more often than not remains illusory. But that the principle has been accepted is already a considerable achievement; a century ago, it would have seemed foolish and outrageous.
Quote comes from the very beginning of the introduction, on pages with roman numerals.
And a lot of feels like something that can still be written today, particularly in areas of the left who pretend that misogyny and sexism are over... while perpetuating them in a range of forms and in combination with other forms of bigotry (racism, queerphobia, disability, ageism).
The Women Incendiaries tells the often overlooked story of the crucial role played by women during the Paris Commune of …
I generally really like narratives that are driven by characters, where the focus is primarily on the characters themselves and how one little thing can upend their whole lives... but this book so, so dull.
Also, I wanted to like it because the concept is interesting (a kidnapped child who is unaware that they were kidnapped as a toddler and discovers it because of one small constant "Missing Person" reminder? Intriguing).
Part of the problem is that, as with many books where the characters are teenagers, the author has seemingly forgotten who teenagers are and how to relate to them. And while I'm quite aware that teenagers are prone to being silly and doing goofy things (as everyone is prone to being), a lot of the moments felt distinctly like the ways that adults view teenagers rather than the ways that teenagers actually are. The conversations felt stilted and fake, …
I generally really like narratives that are driven by characters, where the focus is primarily on the characters themselves and how one little thing can upend their whole lives... but this book so, so dull.
Also, I wanted to like it because the concept is interesting (a kidnapped child who is unaware that they were kidnapped as a toddler and discovers it because of one small constant "Missing Person" reminder? Intriguing).
Part of the problem is that, as with many books where the characters are teenagers, the author has seemingly forgotten who teenagers are and how to relate to them. And while I'm quite aware that teenagers are prone to being silly and doing goofy things (as everyone is prone to being), a lot of the moments felt distinctly like the ways that adults view teenagers rather than the ways that teenagers actually are. The conversations felt stilted and fake, the relationship structure felt fake... It just... nothing felt genuine.
If anything, I'd attribute that to this book really needing to be... a novella, at most. Definitely a short story. The character focus felt less like something the author wanted to do and more like a way to build up fluff, the way a person would do for an essay that has a wordcount they can't meet.
We (Russian: Мы, romanized: My) is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, written …
It's fun to know that this was basically one of the prototypes of the early dystopian (anti-utopian) novel, but it's such a good story that I wonder why it's not one of the more well-known 'classics' of the type.
And it feels like the kind of internal messiness that a person would have trying to survive in such an authoritarian space, with all the conflicting thoughts that accompany it.
We (Russian: Мы, romanized: My) is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, written 1920–1921. It was first published …
We (Russian: Мы, romanized: My) is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, written 1920–1921. It was first published …
