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Sherlock Holmes, Axis Mundi and the Myth of Shangri-La

February 13, 2014 by William Eaton

The Myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, Travel Writing and the Western Creation of Sacred Landscape is Peter Bishop’s study of two centuries of travel writing on Tibet. “Wisdom, guidance, order and archaic continuity” are the qualities about Tibet that held out hope for Westerners,” he says. Arthur Conan Doyle thought so too. He sent Holmes to Tibet for rehab, after apparently plunging to his death in the Reichenbach Falls at the hands of arch-criminal Professor Moriarity. Mr. Bishop’s comment: “Holmes historical […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: travel

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Stuart Hall, the Godfather of Multiculturalism

February 12, 2014 by William Eaton

Stuart Hall, the man known as the “godfather of multiculturalism” died this Monday at the age of 82. Born in Jamaica, he was one of the founders of the school of British Cultural Studies, and his interdisciplinary approach was pioneering. I have read his essay “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” many times. It expands on the ideas of colonial theorists such as Aimé Césaire and Franz Fanon through a semiotic approach that builds on Barthe and Eco. From the essay: There are […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: multiculturalism

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Very Eighteenth Century and Very Modern

February 11, 2014 by William Eaton

With very few exceptions, old poetry is not really my thing. And by old, I mean anything written before T.S. Eliot published “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in 1915, so I definitely run the risk of missing out. With the new year, I’ve been making an effort to read some of the classics of what, in my mind, fall under the terribly inadequate label of “Old Poetry.” One of the greats of Latin American “Old Poetry” is Félix […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR

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The “P” word: Mediated Pornography (III)

February 10, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

Words matter. My recent readings, including Dylan Farrow’s letter to the New York Times, an article published by The Atlantic, and Margaret Grebowiczs’ book Why Internet Porn Matters, have made me more aware of the ways in which the names we give things redefine our experiences. Dylan Farrow’s letter to the New York Times two weeks ago rekindled public conversations about sex abuse, human rights, and privacy. But people seem as skeptical about the “truth” as they were before. The idea that […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: language, New York Times, philosophy, pornography, sex abuse, sexuality, words

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Sex Without Inequality

February 8, 2014 by William Eaton

I was recently passed along this article from the NYTimes Magazine by Lori Gottlieb, “Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex?” The issue at hand is whether the modern trend of women working more hours in the office, and men sharing in the workload of household chores and child care is making the sex life of these so called “egalitarian marriages” suffer. The study Gottlieb cites suggests that “if men did all of what the researchers characterized as feminine chores […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR

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Uncertain Futures

February 7, 2014 by Jennifer Dean

In preparing for a presentation today on early film history I was reviewing some notes and came across one of my favorite quotes from Mary Pickford’s autobiography Sunshine and Shadow. It’s part of a letter written to theatre mogul David Belasco by director William de Mille concerning young Mary’s decision to start making movies: She says she can make a fairly good living at it, but it does seem a shame. After all she can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen […]

Categories: Jennifer Dean, ZiR • Tags: film

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On the Road: 50 Years

February 6, 2014 by William Eaton

In breadth and depth of work, literary quality and intellectual savoir faire, Jan Morris is THE travel writer of the 20th century. She is what the Japanese call a Living Treasure. The World: Life and Travel 1950 – 2000 is a compilation of Morris’s essays about her 50 years of globetrotting, beginning with the conquest of Mt. Everest, an event he (at the time) covered as a reporter, the only one with the expedition, on behalf of The Times of London. “As […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: New York City, sexuality, travel

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Hungry Trickster Coyote

February 5, 2014 by William Eaton

Reading (again) Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes this World: Mischief, Myth, and Art (1998). Hyde is a former professor of writing at Harvard University and was made an MacArthur Fellow in 1991 (amongst other awards). His book on the trickster figure explores the archetype in various aspects, from the mythological figure that helps humanity gain its food and challenges social conventions, to artists like Picasso and Duchamp who challenged the conventions of art. For anyone who enjoys the tricksters’ amusing antics, this […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: Harvard University, Pablo Picasso, Trickster

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Cartoon Journalism

February 4, 2014 by William Eaton

Normally I write about poetry for “Zeteo is Reading,” but this week my post is about cartoons. Heart-wrenching, bone-chilling, unsettling black and white comics, the more so because they are based solely on reality. They are drawn by cartoon journalist Joe Sacco and treat subjects like Palestine, Bosnia and World War I . I had a chance to hear Sacco speak at the Cartagena Hay Festival, and his conference was by far my favorite. He spoke at length about the […]

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ZETEO

Zeteo (ζητέω): to challenge, question, dispute, explore the forgotten and ignored

Category Archives: ZiR

Sherlock Holmes, Axis Mundi and the Myth of Shangri-La

Stuart Hall, the Godfather of Multiculturalism

Very Eighteenth Century and Very Modern

The “P” word: Mediated Pornography (III)

Sex Without Inequality

Uncertain Futures

On the Road: 50 Years

Hungry Trickster Coyote

Cartoon Journalism