David Langwallner Unlike Bob Dylan who is still actively making music, Leonard Cohen has not released a new song from beyond the grave. Cohen is dead. Of course he was from an older generation than Dylan. If Dylan represents the Baby Boomers then the Canadian national poet and songster represents the preceding Beat or Beatnik generation of … Read more
A fundamental difference between modern dictatorships and all other tyrannies of the past is that terror is no longer used as a means to exterminate and frighten opponents but as an instrument to rule masses of people who are perfectly obedient. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1966) It is, perhaps, notable that as a … Read more
The fusion of mood and setting, the mapping of a landscape of the troubled mind – that is what really matters in Ballard. Martin Amis I have been drawing attention for some time to the disintegration of a neo-liberal world order. The pandemic has delivered the coup de grâce, but the fighter’s limbs had been … Read more
I had second thoughts about boarding a plane to Stockholm to meet Ingmar Bergman twenty-four hours after being diagnosed with a severe bronchitis, possible pneumonia, in the depths of the winter of 2000-2001. But the chance of a rare encounter with the greatest humanist in cinematic history proved irresistible. Bergman now appears like a colossus … Read more
The attention in W. G. Sebald’s writing to the fascist era in European history anticipates many of the controlling measures of our time. Images abound throughout his work, leading to observations and recollections both of historical incidents, literary tradition and the lives of friends and immigrants, as well digressions on nature. We find a unique … Read more
Often dismissed as ‘worthy’, but perhaps overly wordy, products of the nineteenth century, the novels of Charles Dickens retain great wisdom argues human rights lawyer David Langwallner, who explores aspects of the author’s work to inform an understanding of contemporary challenges. Dickens and the Law Jaundice and Jaundice drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, … Read more
Say it to me if you have something to confess I was born on the wrong side of the tracks like Ginsberg and Kerouac Bob Dylan, Key West (2020) Notwithstanding my loathing for fundamentalisms of all strands, I have always preached from a gospel of love, or at least a form of reason that leads … Read more
The Public Intellectual Series offers inter-disciplinary journalism, focusing on relevant authors and subject-matters crucial to negotiating our current age of extremes. We avoid specialisation, demystifying topics to provide readers with access to a broad view on contemporary challenges. Our aim is to contribute to a revival in the idea of the public intellectual, which we … Read more
The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son The age of the Antichrist has just only begun” Air Force One coming in through the gate Johnson sworn in at 2:38 Let me know when you decide to thrown in the towel It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul What’s … Read more
Since the 1970s, the consistent presence of neoliberalism in politics alongside short, sharp bursts of neoconservatism have shaped our planet to a greater extent than any other ideologies. This has been to the detriment of all but a shrinking cast of billionaires that profit in periods of crisis, even during the pandemic. The prognosis is … Read more