ZETEO

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

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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 […]

Categories: ZiR

The “P” word: mediated pornography II

February 3, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

Two weeks ago, when I began reading Margaret Grebowicz’s Why Internet Porn Matters I learned that changes in pornography (i.e., an increasing virtual market) reflect and effect the way people think about sexuality, speech and power. Last week, as I dove into chapter 3, I discovered specific ways scholars speak about this topic. For some, pornography is a strictly masculine interest. It gets recognized—along truth and sex—as belonging to the order of the masculine (On the other hand, artifice, veiling, and seduction, […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: fantasy, men, pornography, sexuality, technology, women

Leave a comment

Thinking Yoga

January 31, 2014 by Jennifer Dean

I digress from the topic of film this week because this morning I was struck by a pair of articles I read on yoga. I was first directed to Erika Nicole Kendall’s An Open Letter to the XOJane Writer Who Complained About a Black Woman in Her Yoga Class and then thought I should first read the letter itself (Jen Carol’s It Happened to Me: There are no black people in my yoga classes and I’m suddenly feeling uncomfortable with it) […]

Categories: Jennifer Dean, ZiR • Tags: exercise, race relations, racism, Yoga

Leave a comment

Can You Travel Nuristan June?

January 30, 2014 by William Eaton

Eric Newby’s cable to his friend, Hugh Carless, marked Newby’s exit from a career in high fashion. And the beginning of A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. Renowned travel author William Dalrymple described A Short Walk… as “the book that virtually invented modern travel writing.” In 1956, Newby and Carless attempted to summit Mir Samir, a twenty thousand foot peak in the Hindu Kush range in Nuristan, the land of the Tajiks in the northeast corner of Afghanistan. Neither had climbing experience, other […]

Categories: ZiR

Leave a comment

The Trickster of Liberty – Gerald Vizenor

January 29, 2014 by William Eaton

The trickster is one of my favorite mythological archetypes, with his humorous ways of outsmarting the powerful. He is also a character that I study. Tricksters are often misunderstood as impish thieving devils who do more harm than good. However, it is often through their thievery that humans are liberated—Prometheus, who stole from the gods, brought fire to humanity, and Raven, who stole light from an old man, brought light to the world. Gerald Vizenor, Distinguished Professor of American Studies […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: History, mythology, Trickster

Leave a comment

Pop Poetry

January 28, 2014 by William Eaton

If I don’t keep up with what’s going on musically, I feel irremediably old. So I maintain a sampling of Miley Cyrus, Drake, Rihanna and the lesser-known wonders my musician brother keeps me privy to in my playlist. From experience, I can tell you that it’s true, babies love Beyonce. One new musician that “everyone” is talking about is 17-year-old New Zealander Lorde. She’s on the current cover of the Rolling Stones and won two Grammies this past weekend for […]

Categories: ZiR

Leave a comment

← Older posts

Newer posts →