Writing Wrongs: Why Academics Write So Badly and How That Hurts Them

Exploratory Hypotheses on Discursive Non-Transparency in Research and Critical Praxis Situated Within Hegemonic, Institutional, Socio-Ideational Processes, With Implications

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Science fiction research institute opens in China, as business booms

China’s growing passion for science fiction has spawned the country’s first research institute dedicated to the subject, and an academic magazine is set to follow next year.

Read the full article on South China Morning Post here

Secrets of the Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of the world's best-loved fairytales. As Judy Garland's famous film nears its 70th birthday, how much do its followers know about the story's use as an economic parable?

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A Psychopathic Hymn: J.G. Ballard's 'Crashed Cars' Exhibition of 1970

As advertised in Art & Artists, 'Jim Ballard: Crashed Cars' took place at the gallery between 4-28 April 1970.19 The cars – a Pontiac, an Austin Cambridge A60 and a Mini – were hired from Charles Symmonds's knacker's yard, Motor Crash Repairs. 'They don't appeal to me as art,' Symmonds told the Sunday Times. 'I detest cars. But maybe it's a good idea to show crashed cars. It's frightening.'20 Ballard's choice of car was far from accidental. The Pontiac was a model from the mid-fifties, and thus represented a particularly baroque phase in American car styling, while the Mini symbolised the fun-loving mobility of the swinging sixties. The sober and conservative saloon, the A60, stood for the Mini's exact antithesis.21 All however, through the catastrophe of the car crash, were now in a sense equivalent; smashed and levelled to the raw material of their crushed metal, broken glass, and stained upholstery.

Read the full article by Simon Ford here on /Seconds

The Boston Trial of Naked Lunch

Boston, Mass., once the scene of such famous censorship trials as those involving Forever Amber, God’s Little Acre, and, more recently, Tropic of Cancer, again attracted a distinguished gathering of literary luminaries on January 12, 1965, when “A Book Named Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs” found itself the defendant in Boston Superior Court before Judge J. Hudson.1 The witnesses who testified on behalf of Naked Lunch included Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, John Ciardi, Paul Hollander, Gabriele B. Jackson, Norman Holland, Stanley E. Eldred, John B. Sturrock, and Thomas H. Jackson. The attorney appearing in behalf of the book and its publisher, Grove Press, Inc., was Edward de Grazia, assisted by Daniel Klubock. As we go to press the court has still to hand down its decision. What follows are excerpts from the testimony of Mr. Mailer and Mr. Ginsberg, concluded by a statement from Mr. de GRAZIA.

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Obscenity Case Files: United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses”

James Augusta Aloysius Joyce is considered to be one of the most influential writers of the early 20th century. His book Ulysses has been called one of the most challenging and rewarding novels ever written and is considered to be one of the most important works of Modernist literature. However, what many may not realize is that the book was also the subject of litigation that led to a major change in the way the courts analyzed obscenity cases and expanded the First Amendment rights of authors. This is the story of United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses.”

Read the entire article here.