Enda O’Doherty writes: Populists claim they represent the views of ‘ordinary people’, ignored by out-of-touch, ‘cosmopolitan’ political elites. But their methods of communicating with this segment of society are laden with calculation and condescension.
Alexander Obolonsky writes: Russia has something positive to present – both to itself and to the world. Alongside the dominant culture of subjugation, an alternative counter-culture of resistance has always existed and survived, even in the darkest times.
Andy Storey writes: the old, better-managed order mourned by the writers in Foreign Affairs was no less violent and exploitative than Trump’s grotesque carnival of hustle and hubris.
Stephen O’Neill writes: What is stopping a conversation about a United Ireland which doesn’t knowingly inhabit the same structures that it seeks to replace, or repeat the same cliches and reinscribe the same privileges that those structures have perpetuated?
Maurice Fitzpatrick writes: The fiasco marring this year’s Berlin Film Festival shows once again that the most vital art does not emerge from approval but thrives on the margins. A lesson the BFF needs to (re)learn.
Ciarán O’Rourke writes: On the evidence of his work to date, Martin Dyar might be thought of as an able, and often savagely funny, dramatist of the universal human parish.
David Blake Knox writes: A literary storm raged during this summer. The eye of that storm could be found in the UK, but it concerned a book that has been an international multi-million bestseller. The book provided the basis of a movie that was released to critical acclaim earlier this year – with the promise…
Alena Dvořáková writes: Writing means turning things into words. But when is it too soon to turn people into words? When the dead are prolific, hugely successful writers, this worry is easier to dismiss. After all, they have made a lifetime career out of turning things as well as people into words incessantly, obsessively and,…
Hiram Morgan writes: In Holy Trinity, a white Moorish-style church built in the late nineteenth century overlooking the port of Algiers, there is a memorial to Devereux Spratt, the first Anglican minister to come to the great African city. Reverend Spratt didn’t however arrive of his own free will – he was a captive of…
John Fanning writes: Sarah Wynn-Williams is the latest critic and whistleblower to highlight the egregious behaviour and gross irresponsibility of the tech giants. Her book Careless People is a damning indictment of Facebook, now rebranded as Meta, one of the most profitable and powerful companies in the world. An idealistic young New Zealander working in…