What would the cultural leveling of Valerius Maximus’ Facta et dicta memorabilia look like online in 2009? Click and find out
How can I make the experience of my labor speak? This is how artist Carmen Winant begins her brief text To Whom Is It Given?, published in the first volume of Mother Mother, an artist book conceived and edited by Sheilah Restack (Wilson), written seven weeks after giving birth and addressed to her new born […]
In a comment on yesterday’s post about attention and excess, my OSU colleague Rick Livingston posted the poem Enough Music by Dorianne Laux: Sometimes, when we’re on a long drive, and we’ve talked enough and listened to enough music and stopped twice, once to eat, once to see the view, we fall into this rhythm […]
How can I expect anyone to read these daily posts of Minus Plato? Whenever someone comes up to me and says that they have read some posts, but they cannot keep up on a daily basis, I always tell them that there is no way I would expect anyone to read Minus Plato every day, […]
Today I will be attending a talk by Edith Hall, Professor in the Classics Department and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London. Hall is not only an expert on Greek tragedy, but also on the reception of ancient drama through the ages. More recently, her work has focused on Aristotle and the talk […]
On a Sunday morning in 2008, artist Seth Price arrived at his studio, swinging his MC-N012 50cc Moped Scooter into a parking lot at 38th Street Publishers. Sitting down at his desk, he wrote a hilarious fictional dialogue called For a Friend (Excerpt) to accompany the audio the 2007 audio piece “8-4, 9-5, 10-6, 11-7”. […]
Just before attending a gallery tour of the Wexner exhibition Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life by artist Sheilah Restack (Wilson), my friend, artist Suzanne Silver, with whom I had taught the class Drawing Ideas a year ago, handed me a copy of Amy Sillman’s zine The O.G., the eleventh issue of which was focused on […]
My struggles, bared teeth, growls, howls, and so on, look and sound no different to those of a bear, badger, or what have you. And Plato ought to agree, I think, that my struggles are not merely similar to the animal’s struggles, but that they arise from the same psychological source. Plato, of all people, […]
This post could have been written on Monday, which saw the celebration of Columbus Day and when my son, Eneko, learned all about the ‘discovery’ of America at school. Yet I am posting it today, October 12th, as the anniversary of the actual day in 1492 that Columbus set sail. In the same issue of […]
As I sit here on the Oval of the Ohio State campus after a day of teaching, I am thinking about a moment in Book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneid. During his visit to the Underworld, Aeneas hears of the future heroes of Rome from the shade of his father Anchises. He also learns of the […]