Search Results for: Guernica

Microaggression U: Racism at Yale, from Students’ Perspectives

It may be difficult to imagine that life at Yale, a site of immense privilege as well as a seemingly liberal oasis, could be tough for students at all in light of other, more violent instances of racism occurring across the nation. Yet Yale’s high bar of entry and its utopian image do not preclude its students from being victim to ordinary, systemic injustice. In fact, entering into a place where privilege is so pervasive may only make it more difficult for students from diverse backgrounds to assert their own identities, making greater the inequality between those who have power and those who do not. The demand we make of these student activists, then, should not be How bad is it? or Does this really happen? For at the heart of what’s going on is the long-awaited release of years of pent-up pain and frustration, caused by the slow burn of chronic, systemic injustice.

—At Guernica, Larissa Pham writes beautifully, as always, about the insidious systemic racism she and other persons of color encounter on a regular basis at one of the most prestigious, liberal universities in the world.

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Celebrating the Trans Community: A Reading List

Transgender Awareness Week occurs during the beginning of November, traditionally culminating in the Transgender Day of Remembrance. This period serves to amplify the achievements of the trans community, as well as illuminate its struggles. The Transgender Day of Remembrance honors the victims of hate crimes, suicide, murder and countless other violences trans folks face daily.

2015 has not been kind to the trans community. Trans celebrities receive awards and accolades, yet 79 trans-identified folks have been murdered this year. Many of them are women of color. Many were killed by people they knew, people they trusted.

Historically, the complexities of the trans community have been overlooked, its activism whitewashed or erased or ignored completely. Hollywood continues to cast cisgender actors in trans roles, reaffirming these revisionist attitudes. Subconscious, thoughtless or intentional, this is insidious. Erasing the experiences of a community—the good and the bad—erases the community altogether.

Every story is, of course, different, though the American media prizes a certain, clean-cut narrative of triumph over adversity. Trans is an umbrella term; it encompasses a variety of gender identities, a million stories.

I hope something here inspires you to reaffirm your commitment to making this planet safe and welcoming and kind and generous, or shows you that you are not alone. Or both.

We remember. We remain. Read more…

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Photograph by Katy Grannan for The New Yorker

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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Cities I’ve Never Lived In: A Story By Sara Majka

Photo credit: Chris Ward

Sara Majka | Longreads |  October 2015 |  23 minutes (5,561 words)

Our latest Longreads Exclusive is a previously unpublished short story by Sara Majkaas chosen by Longreads contributing editor A. N. Devers, who writes: 

“This short story, about a woman who decides to travel to from city to city, working and eating in soup kitchens, is the previously unpublished title story from a collection I have been wishing and longing for for almost a decade. I first met Sara Majka in a fiction workshop at the Bennington Writing Seminars, where we both were enrolled as students. At the time, I was a new assistant editor at A Public Space and I brought Majka’s work to the attention of editor Brigid Hughes. If I recall correctly, her story was the only story I brought from my workshop directly to the magazine for consideration. It was a quiet and considered story with a singular voice. I was struck by how certain and precise the language was—how unusual and full of unspoken yearnings. She was able to convey so much disorientation, doubt, and pain through small observations and deceptively simple memories. Majka’s characters read as if they are feeling their way through a room with their eyes closed even though the lights are on—the reality of what is in front of them is difficult for them to process, the choices they are faced with confusing—despite their sincere attempts to find their way.

The story I showed Hughes ultimately did not end up in the magazine, (I later found it a home at Pen America), but she was more than intrigued, and later published another story and began a working relationship with Majka that led to the forthcoming publication of Cities I’ve Never Lived In, as a part of A Public Space Books, their imprint with Graywolf Press. These stories are a marvel and will break your heart. Majka’s debut is breath-stopping.”

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Strange Magic: Four Stories About Disney’s Dark Side

As much fun as it is, Disney can be scary. Any corporation of Disney’s magnitude and influence is scary, no matter how superficially benevolent it seems, or how many cartoon characters it employs. I say this as someone who devoured Disney World guidebooks as an 8-year-old, rode her first plane to Orlando, conquered her fear of roller coasters on Space Mountain, and performed with her high school choir in Tomorrowland. There’s an emotional connection. But I haven’t been to the most magical place on Earth in almost a decade, never as an adult. Revisit Disney through the eyes of these authors and see the good, the bad, and the creepy. Read more…

On ‘Remaining in the Shadows’: Elena Ferrante on Anonymity and Writing

After so many years, are you still sure about your decision to remain in the shadows?

“Remain in the shadows” is not an expression I like. It savors of plots, assassins. Let’s say that, fifteen years ago, I chose to publish books without having to feel obliged to make a career of being a writer. So far, I haven’t been sorry about it. I write and I publish only when the text seems of some value to me and to my publishers. Then the book makes its way, and I go on to occupy myself with something else. That’s it, and I don’t see why I should change my behavior.

How do you feel about the questions that are raised about your identity—are you amused, irritated, or something else?

They are legitimate, but reductive. For those who love reading, the author is purely a name. We know nothing about Shakespeare. We continue to love the Homeric poems even though we know nothing about Homer. And Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Joyce matter only if a talented person changes them into the subject of an opera, a biography, a brilliant essay, a film, a musical. Otherwise they are names, that is to say labels. Why would anyone be interested in my little personal story if we can do without Homer’s or Shakespeare’s? Someone who truly loves literature is like a person of faith. The believer knows very well that there is nothing at all at the bureau of vital statistics about the Jesus that truly counts for him.

At Guernica, an early excerpt from Fragments: On Writing, Reading, and Absence, a collection of Elena Ferrante’s letters, and interviews with her, due out in January.

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The Crossroads of Secular and Spiritual: A Reading List

The line between faith and, well, everything else, is not as stark as I was taught. The “secular” world is not any more evil than the religious world. Sometimes, they aren’t even that different, despite what my Focus on the Family teen magazines would have me think.

I studied American literature as a freshman at my conservative Christian college. My best friend and I walked, bleary-eyed, to our 8 a.m. survey course, and made fun of the sloppily-dressed upperclassmen as a way to stay awake. We dressed up, sometimes in matching outfits, to endure a torturous semester fraught with angry Puritans. By second semester, my friend lost interest. I stuck around, and I’m glad I did.

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem…” 

The Transcendentalists—especially Ralph Waldo Emerson and the above-quoted Walt Whitman—caught me by surprise. I had not known these people created their own modern theology. Evangelical Christians sometimes deride “Cafeteria Christians”—Christians who pick and choose the parts of tradition that gel and leave the rest. Though my professor and classmates gently disagreed and discarded Transcendentalism, I read and reread our assigned readings. This was the first time I witnessed humanist tendencies colliding with traditional religion, and the result was captivating.

I’m drawn to this intersection, this give-and-take: A borrowing, or an appropriation. Eternal life/immortality, fate/(pre)destiny, passion/”calling”—these concepts are two sides of the same coin, a coin placed in the offering plate or handed to the homeless woman on the corner. The following four essays take on saints, proselytization, prayer and coincidence: abstractions that may have great impact on our everyday lives, regardless of faith tradition. Read more…

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Photo: Caroline Whiting

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

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Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Longreads Pick

Our favorite stories of the week, featuring CityBeat, Pacific Standard, Guernica, The New Yorker, and Jarry Mag.

Author: Editors
Source: Longreads
Published: Sep 4, 2015

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

* * *

Read more…