Any super league of British artists would have to invite William Blake to join but from his grave would come a firm rejection. Averse to hierarchies, he was put on trial in 1804 for making seditious remarks about the monarchy. Sean Sheehan He was acquitted but the jury […]
Culture
Pattern recognition
Titles matter. The first English translation of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s seminal “La pensée sauvage” appeared in 1966 as “The Savage Mind” and, until now, this is how the book has been known for English speakers. Sean Sheehan But pensée is usually rendered as “thought” and while sauvage can be […]
Come summer, come class war
The outbreak of revolutions in 1848 across Europe (England and Russia were notable exceptions) was a sequel to the French revolution of 1789. Sean Sheehan There was a new class on the block, the proletariat, and it inaugurated a new era: class war. There are no known leaders […]
Other people’s emotional pain
“The discomfort of evening” is a story set in the Dutch countryside where a ten-year old child, Jas, is struggling to cope with the crisis that has engulfed her family. Sean Sheehan After the death of a brother in a skating accident, the grief has left her parents, […]
“Soldier’s woman”: the body as spoils of war
Raped in the fields, in the bushes or in their own homes. Many of them getting pregnant by the soldiers. The armed conflict has allowed the systematic abuse of almost 5,000 rural women in Peru. But they lost their fear to relive and recount their painful experiences.