Aerodynamics

No town looked less aerodynamic than Des Moines, Iowa, when the Earharts moved there in the autumn of 1907. It was all a special kind of coal-dust black, from the blocky Fourth Street high-rises towering some six-seven stories over the little blackened alleys; […]

“Rated PG-13 for Language and Mild Sexual Situations”: The Complicated Question of Sexuality in M.T. Anderson’s Feed

In a society where approximately seventy-three percent of people have essentially unlimited and uninterrupted access to a colossal version of the internet through “the feed” (Anderson 112), one would expect pornography downloads and other interactions with sexually explicit material or services to skyrocket. But M.T. Anderson’s young adult novel Feed lacks direct representations of sex and sexuality altogether, instead only hinting at pleasure-driven sexual relationships rather than demonstrating them outright. […]

Black and Queer Intersectionality in Nella Larsen’s Passing

Personal identity is one of the most complicated aspects of human sociality—the realms in which our identities exist, coexist, and intermingle are often responsible for the ways in which we interact with the world around us. In the twenty-first century, specifically the last decade, concepts of identity formation and intersectionality have been at the forefront of media and scholarship. […]

The Bazaar of Disclosure

If you tell me why you always ring the Hornet hive doorbell / and wait with a spoon thinking it’s a honey hive, thinking / the amber inhabitants will remind you to wipe your feet on the welcome / mat before letting you swallow and scoop honey soup and larvae lava, / I’ll tell you why I stood Swan-Lake-point-toed […]