
In Avalon, Nell Zink’s Characters — and Her Readers — Have Nowhere to Hide
In novelist Nell Zink’s new book, Avalon, we might not recognize her characters’ circumstances, but we might recognize ourselves in their near-feral stupidity.
Frances Abele CM is Distinguished Research Professor and Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy Emerita at Carleton University. She is a research fellow at the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation and the Broadbent Institute. Much of her work focuses on indigenous-Canada relations.
In novelist Nell Zink’s new book, Avalon, we might not recognize her characters’ circumstances, but we might recognize ourselves in their near-feral stupidity.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed the new reality of great-power conflict, underwritten by nuclear weapons. Our task is to reject aligning with one of the great powers and to instead push for across-the-board nuclear disarmament.
Forty years ago this week, Michael Myerson was one of the organizers for the largest rally in American history against nuclear weapons. The real highlight for him, though, was getting to tell Mayor Ed Koch to go f— himself.
France’s mainstream conservative party is in meltdown, while the far right is stronger than ever. Only a united and resurgent French left can prevent Marine Le Pen from capitalizing on Macron’s authoritarian, neoliberal presidency.
A new survey finds that US gig workers face much greater economic hardship and insecurity than conventional low-wage retail and food-service workers. Lacking most labor law protections, many make less than minimum wage and can’t afford to pay basic bills.
The first round of France’s parliamentary elections saw left-wing coalition NUPES come first nationally. President Emmanuel Macron’s allies reacted by tarring the Left as extremists — but Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s coalition looks closer than ever to power.
In the mid-19th century, Benedictine monks seized Aboriginal land to establish a new mission in Western Australia. In New Norcia, they attempted to recreate a reactionary feudal society that had all but disappeared from Europe — with disastrous results.
The January 6 hearings fail to tackle the most important questions about the incident; they won’t hold anyone accountable; and most Americans have tuned them out. As political theater and a play for the midterms, they’re an opening night bomb.
The women’s suffrage movement is too often remembered as exclusively middle-class and focused solely on votes for women. But socialist and working-class suffragettes played essential roles in the fight for equality.
The first season of The Wire began 20 years ago this month. It remains one of this century’s great television shows — both stylish and smart, with unforgettable characters woven into a striking portrait of the depredations of capitalism in one US city.
International private equity has its eyes on Canadian medical services not covered by the country’s national health care program.
Federal Reserve chair and former private equity exec Jerome Powell has promised to tackle inflation by lowering workers’ wages. At the same time, he has declined to implement a law to reduce the skyrocketing paychecks of his former colleagues on Wall Street.
Conservative Mark Levin has climbed the best-seller list again with his right-wing tract American Marxism. It’s a plodding mess of a book, with page after page of recycled slogans and analysis so thin you have to squint to find any substance.
How can someone take a band as exciting, wild, and innovative as the Sex Pistols and make such a conventional, paint-by-numbers miniseries? With Pistol, Danny Boyle found a way.
Recent revelations prove that Hillary Clinton had a direct role in spreading now-discredited allegations that stoked the Russiagate frenzy — an episode that has made the already challenging task of pursuing a rational policy toward Russia even more difficult.
Afro-pessimism has become a highly influential school of thought. This is unfortunate: Afro-pessimism flattens blackness and insists overcoming racism is impossible. Socialists offer a stronger interpretation of where racism comes from — and how to defeat it.
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell plans to address sky-high inflation by hiking interest rates — acknowledging that doing so will suppress wages and worker power. It’s a response that will force workers to bear the brunt of the inflation crisis.
The New York City Housing Authority has been starved of investment for decades — and it’s being used to justify privatization by stealth. But tenants are fighting back, asserting the right to good-quality public housing for all.
The fight against renewed Progressive Conservative rule in Ontario will be an uphill battle. New Democratic Party MPP Joel Harden, hot off his reelection, is ready to rumble.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing coalition is neck and neck with Emmanuel Macron’s party in polls for today’s French parliamentary elections. The coalition’s victory would shake the neoliberal order in France and across the European Union.