Michael G. Cronin reinstates the role of literature as a vehicle for feeling that is radically embodied but in a special sense ‘impersonal’. He uses Rachel Greenwald Smith’s terms to both reinstate the affective as the basis of literature but also to challenge a mode of writing that attributes the ‘ownership’ and regulation of affect … More This is a blog on Michael G. Cronin’s ‘Revolutionary bodies: Homoeroticism and the political imagination in Irish writing’ (2022).

I cannot wait to see Tate Modern’s Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider for the whole show, it would seem from the evidence of the catalogue, is curated, and some critics suggest it is over-curated for reasons I will explore, by people who believe that we can understand great art only by understanding great … More I cannot wait to see Tate Modern’s ‘Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider’ for the whole show is curated by people who believe that The Blue Rider movement was about crossing the boundaries that define single artists, cultures, sexualities  and genders. Are they right?

Posted on 13th June 2024 by stevendouglasblog LITTLE TOM VISITS THE DINOSAURS AT BISHOP AUCKLAND: Part 1: The World of Oversize Insects This millipede would be, stood on its head, the height of two people, the top standing on the lower one’s shoulders, the plaque said. Tom thought of Mum onto Dad’s head landing not his shoulders: clumsy … More Some verses about why Tom likes dinosaurs & adores creepy-crawlies but might, in the end, prefer small ones? An exhibition at Bishop Auckland Town Hall seen on Tuesday 11th June.

Thomas Hart is an aging queer writer whose shadowy passions for transitory young men (the main instance being in the transit of a railway carriage) or a lover held not in body but only at a distance usually expends its dusty outcomes in using the world of astronomical science as a means of talking about … More Thomas Hart, an aging queer writer, is led to discard his writing with ‘a cry of disgust – at his imagination, capacity for characterisation, and, in fact the whole absurd enterprise of literature – …’. This is a blog on Sarah Perry (2024) ‘Enlightenment’

At a point early in the novel Sheila English points out to her youngest son, Doll (a nickname given to him from a childish pronunciation of Donal) that to keep comp[any with his beloved older brother Cillian is dangerous to Doll.  Sheila has a tendency to elevated description and warns Doll of ‘spending time with … More Sheila says: ‘I know the sorts that do be congregating over there. That house is a wild house’. This is a blog on Colin Barrett (2024) ‘Wild Houses’.