James Reath

from the big gerhard richter show

bank hawks complex hedging strategies as whack-a-mole sell off rips (found poem in FT today)

Terminal Futures: JG Ballard in the 21st Century An interdisciplinary conference commemorating 20 years since Ballards final novel and just over50 years since the publication of High Rise

Looking forward to this JG Ballard conference in May 2026 in London.

I'll be talking about the dream-forms and environmental catastrophes experimental meteorology inspires in mid-century modernism ☁️

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/terminal-f...

🔔🔔POTENTIAL SCIENCE FICTION JOB ALERT KLAXON🔔🔔

Modernism’s Whims Abstract. Hatched from the nonsense word ‘whim-wham’ in the seventeenth century, ‘whim’ began its linguistic life in obscurity, and even having risen to pr

So it looks as though you can access my new book already if you’re subscribed to OUP. Here’s the link :) 🎉✨

academic.oup.com/book/62228?s...

CFP Details

CFP Details (2)

CFP Details (3)

We are excited to join forces with the Australasian Modernist Studies Network for:

"Toxic Modernism / Modernist Intoxication"

Hosted at U Adelaide, Nov 19-21; proposals due 24 July. Please spread the word and join us!

I wrote about Serra’s Berlin Block & Chaplin’s secret double act with classical sculptures (in City Lights + The Great Dictator, but also early works His New Job, Work, Behind the Screen, &c.)

This entire special issue—on “the Chaplinish”—is amazing! 🥾

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

front cover of Ben Marcus’s book Notes from the Fog

page extract from Notes from the Fog

page extract from Notes from the Fog

This is brilliant. Confused feelings fold—over & over—into weird biochemical technologies…

Prophecy creams make babies spew lies; shiny do-nothing pills induce vomiting; chemical mood control monuments mediate low-level public sadness; computer screens feed starving employees UV nutrients…

from Olivier Lebrun's A Final Companion to Books from The Simpsons (2018)

Event poster for "Anexact Form & Modernist Culture"

To mark the publication of my first book, join us online (or in-person) on 3rd Dec 2025 at 16:30GMT / 11:30EST

Everyone is welcome 😊

Thanks @edinburghup.bsky.social @becimay.bsky.social @emmywaldman.bsky.social

Info: bit.ly/3LZXc6w

Thanks Stephen

Lee Miller’s Man and tar (c.1929-1931)

“a spectrum of chemical jams and jellies”
— Fran Ross, Oreo (1974)

Can’t wait to read this, Nicholas Shapiro’s inspiring “chemical ethnography” of formaldehyde in budget mobile homes…

Polypharma Fiction Abstract. This article examines how the rise of polypharmacy changes the novel genre’s response to the pain of anxiety and its narrative interest. Necessar

this is great 💊

"Polypharma Fiction" by Beth Blum

academic.oup.com/alh/article-...

recent art photo dump w/ Paul Thek, Mike Kelley, Lee Seung Jio, Sophie Calle

Some close ups of Ambera Wellmann’s Death Masks Eternity (2025)

"one of those giant shopping malls surrounded by a wall that you bounced off like a rubber ball—unless you had a credit card on you" -- PKD, A Scanner Darkly (1977)

Hopefully there is already one in the works but Rosalyn Drexler's novel To Smithereens (1972) needs a UK publisher

The secretive corporate empire that captured a breakaway state Sheriff dominates the economy of Transnistria and its pro-Russian government, but the war in Ukraine has thrown its future into doubt

strange days in Transnistria

“Transnistria is not a real country […] It is basically a big business corporation owned and run by two local oligarchs who’ve made their fortunes on free supplies of Russian gas”

on.ft.com/4gg2bew The secretive corporate empire that captured a breakaway state

“bones fuss about in your hand
like spandex in a donut.”
-- Keston Sutherland, Neocosis (2005)

“I gradually lost all fear of distortion. I perhaps oozed, rather than thought. What united and separated things? An imperceptible membrane, stretchy, spangled, gauzelike, of total vitality, which included laziness. A crystalline gel. An alphabet.”
- Lisa Robertson's novel The Baudelaire Fractal

thank you! that’d be great!

ah, thank you ☺️ I’ll email you the PDF! I really enjoyed your essay in Post45 on spirals and Art Spiegelman - so good!

Thank you for this Marina - and thank you for all of your brilliant help editing!

I wrote about doodles, democracy, & everyday aesthetics for @aeon.co.

The essay is a spin-off from a chapter in my book Anexact Form & Modernist Culture!

Leigh Bowery at home in his London council flat (c 1980s) w/ Star Trek wallpaper, latex glue pour hair, kitsch Elvis Presley toy, psychedelic Dreamachine-style lamp, polyfoam shoulders, flowers, tele, etc.

Brilliant review by Eugenie Brinkema on Deleuze’s seminar On Painting...

“Philosophy doesn’t work as TL;DR.”

“Leap over silent forms”
- “Snow Line” (c 1928-1935) from Chika Sagawa’s Collected Poems

The graphic shows cultivated lands bordering on a river/wetland and collections of trees (credit: AXIO-IMAGES from Getty Images) in the background of text bubbles. The text summarizes key details of the conference. Please read the description and the full call on the RCC website for this information.

We are looking for multidisciplinary panels to be presented at our upcoming conference "Beyond Dualism—Thinking Creatively Across Worlds," which takes place in July next year.

The full call can be found in the news section on our website: www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/news/news_ev... (1/?)