Hans Peter Broedel This Halloween, I gave some thought to the sort of monsters that I find most horrifying. This is not something I’ve done before, which is perhaps odd because I have a long history looking at other people’s monsters. Historians, psychologists, and anthropologists are always interested in a culture’s monsters, because they are remarkably sensitive
Earlier this month, Brian James Schill first book, The Year’s Work in the Punk Bookshelf, Or, Lusty Scripts, came out from Indiana University Press. We’re pretty lucky to have an in with Brian because, up to recently, he served as undergraduate research coordinator in the honors program at the University of North
Like 98% of the Classicists (or at least Hellenists) in the world right now, I’ve just finished reading Johana Hanink’s The Classical Debt: Greek Antiquity in an Age of Austerity (2017). It’s a remarkable book that traces the history of the concept of “Greek debt” from conversations about the West’s
Sign of the Devil (printed in NDQ 84.1/2) Gilad Elbom A small record store. The address, an old edifice in a seldom-traveled thoroughfare in the center of London, wasn’t easy to find. In America, where things are constructed on a much larger scale, nobody would give a narrow alley that
Christopher Gable My brother has never liked Tom Petty. He hated his voice. Whiny. Too high. Inflected with a Southern accent. But my brother is nothing if not a walking contradiction. As much as he hates Tom Petty and Neil Young’s high-pitched whining, he loves the extremely high voice of
North Dakota Quarterly is pleased to announce three “notable contribution” commendations in the 2017 Best American Essays volume. This is a major honor for the Quarterly and its authors and editors. The jury recognized three individual contributions, one by Peter Grandbois and one by W. Scott Olsen, as well as
A Spot of Body, Without Blood (appeared in NDQ 84.1/2) Bibhu Padhi A body lies on a road in the north, under fog and winter. A hazy picture of mice scampering away onto the road from under its thin sheet of helplessness, is all there is, except a sheer white
Neither Here nor There: Fluid Identities and Exile in Jesús Díaz’s Dime algo sobre Cuba (Tell Me Something About Cuba) (published in NDQ 84.1/2) Patricia Catoira With the renewal of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States under the Obama Administration, travel restrictions to the island have also begun to ease,
Eric Burin In an 1857 speech, Abraham Lincoln explained the meaning and purpose behind the Declaration of Independence’s insistence that all men are “created equal” and that they are endowed with “certain unalienable rights,” including “liberty.” These noble sentiments, observed Lincoln, had no practical bearing on the patriots’ quest to
Remembering Sunny Acres (published in NDQ 84.1/2) Gulchin Ergun The first day of fourth grade came with a new bus driver wearing a baseball jacket and thick-rimmed glasses that slid down the sweat on her nose when we told her she took us to the wrong school. By the time
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