Tracks of the Week 03.06.23
By the summer of 1961, the indomitable saxophonist John Coltrane had established his first quartet and opened new harmonic expanses for jazz through his sheets of sound. As a leader for Atlantic,...
The Homeric Parallel in Ulysses: Joyce, Nabokov, and Homer in Maps
When Ulysses was published on 2 February, 1922, it was the culmination of a flurry of activity extending back to the previous summer. James Joyce had begun writing his novel in late 1914. By...
Cultureteca 10.01.16
Sweden Imposes ID Checks Over ‘The Bridge’ On Monday Sweden implemented mandatory identity checks for travellers arriving by train, bus, or ferry from Denmark, in an attempt to reduce the number of migrants arriving...
The Great Long Opening Sentences of World Literature
Some of the greatest opening sentences in world literature are no more than a few words long. They might affect a statement of fact, or involve an abrupt exclamation or earnest entreaty....
Tommaso Landolfi and ‘Gogol’s Wife’
The issue of Nikolai Gogol’s romantic life has long vexed biographers and critics. With significant gaps in his biography, especially during his travels and years spent abroad, and with Gogol elusive on the...
Crimea in the Russian Empire: A Cultural History
Kievan Rus flourished from about 882 – when Prince Oleg moved the capital of the Rus from Novgorod to Kiev – until the 13th century, when the Mongol Empire invaded and destroyed...
Podcast: ‘Silentium!’ by Fyodor Tyutchev
This is the first in a new series of videos/podcasts drawing upon what I have written and published here at Culturedallroundman.com. The podcast returns to the very first piece I published back...
Joyce, Nabokov, and Dirty Books: The Publications of Ulysses, Haveth Childers Everywhere, and Lolita
With Ezra Pound acting as intermediary, from the spring of 1918 until the close of 1920, James Joyce published the emerging episodes of Ulysses in The Little Review – the American avant-garde literary magazine...
Art and Architecture Towards Political Crises: The 1937 Paris International Exposition in Context
The 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (‘International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life’) was held in Paris: the French capital’s sixth and latest International...