Nicholas Dames

Belated thanks for the kind words Ivan! Flattered that you read it

The Solveig Güzel/Sherbert Taylor chronicles continue

Sometimes the mail brings treats

Tired as a Mother | Nicholas Dames What is the tone of this literary-theoretical tone? Take away anything from reading these books together and it’s their similar vibe: something quietly persistent, invested in its own disinvestments, ...

I’m in the new issue of @nplusonemag.com with a piece on a recent kind of theory-text— the ingredients of which are exhaustion, abstraction, and a stoic kind of mordancy, and whose voice is that of the reading mother:

“Parallel Tracks”: Sophie Ratcliffe on Academia, Memoirs, and Motherhood “I used to want to experience everything. I don’t anymore.”

I got a chance to talk to @sophieratcliffe.bsky.social about her recent hybrid of memoir and literary theory, and we discussed genres of academic writing, following in the paths of fictional characters, parenting, aging, and more

Is there a possible combination of Bookmatch quiz answers that would give you *both* of these recommendations? Donate and find out

The Poetics of Democracy “This novel is about a collective, but that collective is not the nation. It can only allude to the nation without becoming it.”

Up now at @publicbooks.bsky.social: a conversation between Merve Emre and Devika Rege about the latter’s excellent debut novel, out now in the US

Thanks for this— can you add @publicbooks.bsky.social?

Ok, I started a starter pack for novel scholars and the people who love them. Long live long forms! Happy to add anyone I missed.
go.bsky.app/FcvMAmd

Marginal jotting (pen, never pencil) via a system of eccentric symbols developed over years; these synthesized into a list written on inside back cover or on endpapers (if any); then, if needed, this list is rewritten and elaborated in digital form with some phrases toward future actual sentences

Public Thinker: Jonathan Kramnick on the Craft of Criticism amid Institutional Decline “Arguments stand or fall to the degree to which the practice is done well.”

Of interest to some here I’m sure:

Thanks, Ted!

A stack of books with the silk bookmark ribbons sticking out.

The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century Nicholas Dames A history of the chapter from its origins in antiquity to today

Imagine your first experience reading a book divided into chapters. What confronted you was a story that unexpectedly stuttered. Discover the fascinating history of the chapter from @njdames.bsky.social.

press.princeton.edu/ideas/the-lo...

#Literature

Important (and depressing) to remember that the narrator of that song is *at most* in his late 30s and probably, like DF himself at the time, 32-33

Nicholas Dames and Christine Smallwood in conversation On Wednesday, November 15, join critics and n+1 contributors Nicholas Dames and Christine Smallwood for a conversation about Dames’s new book, The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the ...

NYC-area friends: there’s a book launch event for THE CHAPTER at the n+1 office in Greenpoint on Wednesday night, where I’ll be talking with critic/journalist/novelist Christine Smallwood about all things segmented, interrupted, paused, etc. Beer and wine (and book copies) for sale!

Today is my book’s official pub date, and while I’m not at home— or even in the US— to celebrate it, I *was* able to visit it at the storied Heffers in Cambridge. Now for the longest of deep breaths.

#276 - A Segmented History of The Chapter: A Dialogue with Nicholas Dames In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Nicholas Dames about the history of the chapter. They discuss how chapters have boundaries, define what i...

I had the pleasure of talking about my book *The Chapter* with @xavierbonilla.bsky.social -- a fantastic interlocutor-- for his podcast "Converging Dialogues". We touched on therapy-metaphors, why novel chapters get longer, and why we can't not segment time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyaC...

Vilém Flusser, Does Writing Have a Future? (2002)

Public Books has moved in, is unpacking boxes, getting used to the new place

Yup, second time as farce

I’m going on about 28 hours now, hoping tonight does the trick

Barney Miller. The bass riff that kicks off the theme changed often, yet always killed

Appreciate this, Ted, as I try to get over this “moved to a new school” feeling I’ve got here

Does humanities research matter anymore? (opinion) The rapid collapse in available research funding is one crisis in the humanities we aren’t talking enough about, Asheesh Kapur Siddique writes.

Incisive and depressing piece on what’s been happening gradually and now suddenly to humanities research funding

The New Criticism hits the US: Harvard course catalogue, 1930-1

Would love to be added!

The Golden Notebook?