Conversations: Patti Marxsen and Madison Smartt Bell
I met Madison Smartt Bell on the veranda of the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince in 1997 during a summer of communications work for Haiti’s Hôpital Albert Schweitzer. At the time,…
For Nietzsche, life’s ultimate question was: ‘Does it dance?’
Friedrich Nietzsche’s body of work is notoriously difficult to navigate. He wrote in multiple styles, including essays, aphorisms, poems, and fiction. He introduced idiosyncratic concepts such as the free spirit,…
Kafka’s Bestiary; or, Regarding a Remark of Adorno’s Never Said
“Auschwitz begins when one looks at a slaughterhouse and says, ‘they’re only animals’.” This quote is attributed to Theodor W. Adorno. Except he never said it. Despite this, at least…
Anthems for Bored Youth: On Lars Iyer’s Nietzsche and the Burbs
In an 1886 addendum to The Birth of Tragedy, his first book, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “today I find it an impossible book—badly written, clumsy, and embarrassing.” The book,…
Chekhov’s Silence
I picked up Checkhov’s story “The Kiss” as an undergraduate who had never read a Russian author. The story has a fairly simple plot: along with his artillery brigade, Staff-Captain…
Travels with My Daughter: the Himalayas
In October ’72 my ten-year-old daughter, Veronica, and I attempted to fly from Kathmandu to Lukla for the Khumbu trek to Thangyboche monastery, which lies at over 12,600 ft., across…
The Jokes Always Saved Us: Humor in the Time of Stalin
Jokes never mean only one thing, and the hidden story of political humour under Stalin is far more nuanced than a simple struggle between repression and resistance.
Conversations: Niloufar Talebi and Zack Rogow
The Critical Flame is thrilled to feature this conversation between author, award-winning translator, multidisciplinary artist, and producer Niloufar Talebi and author, editor, translator Zack Rogow. Special thanks are due to…
Conversations: Tomaž Šalamun and Daniel Nester
An interview between Tomaž Šalamun and Daniel Nester.