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Simone de Beauvoir’s translators and the many critics have turned their disputes into a play where each acts the role assigned by theatrical cliché… As translation contretemps go, the one surrounding French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) and her foundational work of modern feminism, Le Deuxième Sexe, first published in two volumes in French in … Read more

Late fourth-century frescoes of Sts. Peter, Andrew, John and Paul have been uncovered in the Catacombs of St. Tecla, underneath a nondescript office building in Rome. Arachaeologists used lasers to remove centuries’ worth of calcium carbonate deposits which had accumulated over the paintings. Link

As someone who was a child during the end of the Soviet Era, the following news items cause minor cognitive dissonance: 1) The Russian guided missile warship Varyag is docking in San Francisco this week on a friendly tour coinciding with a visit from the Russian President. At the same time there are three Japanese … Read more

The Industrial Revolution is the inflection point of economic history. During all the millennia before that revolution, incomes were static and humans were poor—often hungry, inadequately clothed, ill-housed. But somehow, in the two-and-a-half centuries since humanity learned to mass produce, a large number of ordinary people have acquired more material comfort than even the wealthiest … Read more

Great CfP by Eleanor Saitta (Structure Light Design Research Collective). It is now evident that postmodernism is dead. It has not ceased to function, exactly. The tools it gave us for the analysis of culture still work to the same degree they did previously. It remains a functional standpoint for understanding the effects of traditional … Read more