Stop, Look, and Listen #50
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
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This post is part of the newsletter’s ‘Stop, Look, and Listen’ series, a digest of articles and podcasts that I’ve found engaging and insightful over the past week.
Content warning: Genocide.
Five things to look at:
Marc Lynch discussed the historical precedents for Israel’s recent strike on Doha and why it still signals a drastic escalation, in this post for his The Ghost of Abu Aardvark newsletter – one likely to alienate the other Gulf Arab states, show up the US’s ineffectual position, and pave the way for the occupation of Gaza.
Writing for the History Workshop blog, Benjamin Thomas White examined the historical intersection between French archaeological photography and aerial military surveillance in Syria, and the need or scholarship that draws upon these images to recognise the colonial political contexts in which they were generated.
In this post for his Patterns of Translation newsletter, András Kiséry traced the history of the translation and publication of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost across Europe before 1800, amid growing uses of vernacular languages for literary purposes, and the increasing centrality of English literature to European culture.
Vaughn Joy has revisited the 1980 film The Blues Brothers for her Review Roulette newsletter, and its deployment of Black musical history – including casting the likes of Cab Calloway and Aretha Franklin – in order to challenge indifference to poverty and Black culture and community in the present.
Andy Beckett has reviewed a new collection of Tony Benn’s political writings for the London Review of Books, exploring Benn’s zealous faith in the power of democracy, the insightfulness and unappreciated subtlety of his thinking, and his occasional misassumptions about the future, including that of the Labour Party.
Five things to listen to:
On CBC’s Ideas programme, Robert Macfarlane – in discussion with Jon Johnson, Jennifer Bonnell, and others – explored what it means to consider rivers to be alive and possessing rights, states’ and corporations’ culpability in degrading them, and the role of indigenous communities in stewarding and reviving them.
Janet Anderson interviewed Melanie O’Brien on the Asymmetrical Haircuts podcast about why the International Association of Genocide Scholars deems Israel’s actions in Gaza to constitute genocide, the issues taken into account in making such a decision, and the obligations it imposes upon other states.
On the This Day podcast, Kellie Carter Jackson, Jody Avirgan, and Nicole Hemmer revisited retired Vermont farmer Fred Tuttle’s passage from starring as himself in a 1996 mockumentary to surprisingly winning the state’s 1998 Republican Senate primary against the recently arrived businessman John McMullen.
John Brewin was joined by Miguel Delaney and Tariq Panja on the Libero podcast to evaluate Arsène Wenger’s career, including his initial revolutionisation of English football at Arsenal, his subsequent struggles to compete with newly wealthy rivals, and his current role as FIFA’s chief of global football development.
On The Totally Football Show, James Richardson, Duncan Alexander, Felipe Cardenas, and Luis Miguel Echegaray reflected on Colombia’s incredibly talented men’s football team of the 1990s, from their ascent in a context of cartel-driven violence, to their hugely consequential first-round exit from the 1994 World Cup.
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You might also enjoy these posts from the Academic Bubble archive:
The Making of the Political Economy of Post-War English Professional Football
English professional football had long functioned as a closed political economy, but changing circumstance after the Second World War resulted in its partial opening up.
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
This comic fantasy about a forty-something woman who travels back to her senior year after attending her high school reunion offered a circular notion of time, relationships, and generational ties.
‘We Don’t Need to Play These Games’
Australia’s 31-0 victory over American Samoa in 2001 caused the victor as much embarrassment as the loser, and provoked both scorn and amusement over in Britain.