Past Traumas and Wounds of the Present in “Nervous System” – Chicago Review of Books

Past Traumas and Wounds of the Present in “Nervous System” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Trauma likes to stick around. It likes to burrow its way under our skin and nestle there, getting comfortable without your knowing—or maybe you do know, maybe you can feel it setting its claws into you and taking hold. Either way, the trauma is there to stay, not rearing its head or making itself … Read more

The Sacredness of Queer Aunthood in “Stone Fruit” – Chicago Review of Books

The Sacredness of Queer Aunthood in “Stone Fruit” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Myths about romantic and familial love run rampant in our heteronormative, patriarchal culture. As children, we’re trained to believe that romantic love is the most noble love of all, that breakups are failures, and that being a mother is the purest way to love a child. Queer and trans communities have been pushing back … Read more

Chaos, Possibility, and Mangareme Fluffies in “The Unraveling” – Chicago Review of Books

Chaos, Possibility, and Mangareme Fluffies in “The Unraveling” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Science fiction has a longstanding interest — a sub-genre, even — in using technology and far-future settings to think about gender. Classic feminist SF from the 1970s on, like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, imagined worlds with gender roles reversed, complicated, or erased; almost all far-future, post-scarcity works, like Iain … Read more

An Interview with Keiler Roberts About The Evolution of Comic Autobiography in “My Begging Chart” – Chicago Review of Books

An Interview with Keiler Roberts About The Evolution of Comic Autobiography in “My Begging Chart” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] When I first met Keiler Roberts, I wasn’t aware of her work. Harboring feelings of untapped potential due to my art-major mother, it was a simple desire to learn how to draw that brought me into Professor Roberts’ classroom. But soon thereafter, I remedied that ignorance, and learned that the wry wit and earnestness … Read more

Art and Culture on Their Own Terms in “Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts” – Chicago Review of Books

Art and Culture on Their Own Terms in “Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] “Sitting down to write a letter, with an addressee and signatory, is an intimate experience,” editors Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam write in the introduction of Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts. The pretext is deceptively simple: Ho, a visual artist, and Nam, a curator, invited Asian Americans, loosely defined, working … Read more

The Powers of Kinesthetic Communication in “Punch Me Up to the Gods” – Chicago Review of Books

The Powers of Kinesthetic Communication in “Punch Me Up to the Gods” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] At ten years old, Brian Broome tried to take lessons from his friend Corey on how to be “cooler”:  “…Black boys had to show through our behavior that we were undeniably, incontrovertibly the most male. The toughest. We sat on either end of his bed and I got lost in his pretty brown eyes … Read more

Meditations on Collective Guilt, Culpability, and the Natural World in “The Impossible Resurrection of Grief” – Chicago Review of Books

Meditations on Collective Guilt, Culpability, and the Natural World in “The Impossible Resurrection of Grief” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] The world is dying and it is all humanity’s fault—an on the nose observation, but one that encapsulates Octavia Cade’s novella, The Impossible Resurrection of Grief. We meet marine biologist Ruby in a near-future Australia, immersed in her study of jellyfish while dealing with the fallout of a colleague and friend drowning in the … Read more

An Interview with Susan Orlean – Chicago Review of Books

An Interview with Susan Orlean – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Susan Orlean is known for making her readers care about people and things they may not have otherwise noticed. On the short list: German Shepherds, libraries, luxury condos, a 10-year old boy named Colin Duffy, and, of course, orchids. Coming up on the 20th anniversary of the film “Adaptation,” itself an adaptation of her … Read more