What We Are Reading Today: The Waste Land

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Updated 11 January 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: The Waste Land

Author: Matthew Hollis

Renowned as one of the world’s greatest poems, “The Waste Land” has been said to describe the moral decay of a world after war and the search for meaning in a meaningless era.  A century after its publication in 1922, T. S. Eliot’s enigmatic masterpiece remains one of the most influential works ever written.

Matthew Hollis reconstructs the intellectual creation of the poem and brings the material reality of its charged times vividly to life.

He reveals the cultural and personal trauma that forged it  through the lives of its protagonists — of Ezra Pound, who edited it; of Vivien Eliot, who sustained it; and of T. S. Eliot himself, whose private torment is woven into the seams of the work.


What We Are Reading Today: Utopianism for a Dying Planet

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Updated 02 May 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Utopianism for a Dying Planet

  • The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability

Author: Gregory Claeys

In the face of Earth’s environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won’t save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. 

“Utopianism for a Dying Planet” examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today’s thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe.

The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability.
Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Making of Barbarians’ by Haun Saussy

Updated 01 May 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Making of Barbarians’ by Haun Saussy

Debates on the canon, multiculturalism, and world literature often take Eurocentrism as the target of their critique. But literature is a universe with many centers, and one of them is China.

The Making of Barbarians offers an account of world literature in which China, as center, produces its own margins.

Here Sinologist and comparatist Haun Saussy investigates the meanings of literary translation, adaptation, and appropriation on the boundaries of China long before it came into sustained contact with the West.

When scholars talk about comparative literature in Asia, they tend to focus on translation between European languages and Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, as practiced since about 1900.

In contrast, Saussy focuses on the period before 1850, when the translation of foreign works into Chinese was rare because Chinese literary tradition overshadowed those around it.

“The Making of Barbarians” looks closely at literary works that were translated into Chinese from foreign languages or resulted from contact with alien peoples.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Fetters of Rhyme’ by Rebecca M. Rush

Updated 29 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Fetters of Rhyme’ by Rebecca M. Rush

In his 1668 preface to Paradise Lost, John Milton rejected the use of rhyme, portraying himself as a revolutionary freeing English verse from “the troublesome and modern bondage of Riming.”

Despite his claim to be a pioneer, Milton was not initiating a new line of thought—English poets had been debating about rhyme and its connections to liberty, freedom, and constraint since Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

“The Fetters of Rhyme” traces this dynamic history of rhyme from the 1590s through the 1670s. 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Stem: Poems’ by Stella Wong

Updated 28 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Stem: Poems’ by Stella Wong

In “Stem,” Stella Wong intersperses lyric poems on a variety of subjects with dramatic monologues that imagine the perspectives of specific female composers, musicians, and visual artists, including Johanna Beyer, Mira Calix, Clara Rockmore, Maryanne Amacher, and Delia Derbyshire.

Whether writing about family, intimate relationships, language, or women’s experience, Wong creates a world alive with observation and provocation, capturing the essence and the problems of life with others.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Rare Tongues’ by Lorna Gibb

Updated 27 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Rare Tongues’ by Lorna Gibb

Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the resulting loss of a rich linguistic tapestry reflecting unique perspectives and ways of life.

‘Rare Tongues” tells the stories of the world’s rare and vanishing languages, revealing how each is a living testament to human resilience, adaptability, and the perennial quest for identity.

Taking readers on a captivating journey of discovery, Lorna Gibb explores the histories of languages under threat or already extinct as well as those in resurgence, shedding light on their origins, development, and distinctive voices.