Essayism Review: Towards a Definition
Brian Dillon, Essayism, London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017 I’ll start with the conclusion so there’s no chance of wandering off and reaching a different one: the book led me to understand “essayism” to be...
Book Review: Amos Morris-Reich, “Nazi Fantasy”: Vilém Flusser and History as Site of Experiment
The Czech writer Vilém Flusser (1920-1991) is slowly becoming better known among English-speakers, emerging from a constricting isolation as a “theorist of new media,” particularly in Germany in the 1990s, into more diverse exchanges...
Reading for Pleasure
I read somewhere recently (irresponsible, irresistible phrase!) that the proportion of us who read for pleasure is dropping, and has been for some time. The implication was that most of us, most of the...
An Abecedarium
The current issue of Flusser Studies marks the twentieth year this small, online journal has been publishing research and commentary on the life and work of Vilém Flusser (1920 – 1991). I’ve been a...
Who Reads?
Apparently the US federal government is having difficulties recruiting agents to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). There are a number of reasons, but one important one is that applicants often cannot pass an “open...
The Second Sex (book review)
Reading this now, in 2025, was like visiting a site where something astonishing was built some 75 years ago, something that goes on challenging readers even as the terms of that challenge shift and...