4,811 words
When my father died last month, we had not spoken since Christmas. A few terse emails were exchanged, but that was it. You see, over Christmas dinner my father had revealed that he was contributing money to the SPLC. This didn’t exactly sit well with me. (more…)
6,348 words
Editor’s Note:
The following text is a transcript by V. S. of part of Jonathan Bowden’s interview at the Union Jack Club in London on Saturday, November 21, 2009, after his famous lecture/performance on Punch and Judy. The title is editorial. (more…)
Frederick Childe-Hassam, The Sonata
968 words
It seems like there’s a total “disconnect” on this issue [eugenics] between science on the one hand, and popular opinion, on the other.
You’re absolutely right. There are two arenas in which the Nature-Nurture debate is taking place – the scientific one, and the public one – and the outcomes are exactly opposite. (more…)
122 words
1. “Science Versus Ideology”: Thomas Jackson reviews Nancy Segal, Born Together – Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study
976 words
One of the more interesting things about the pulp star Doc Savage, the man of bronze, is that he carried out operations on the brains of criminals in order to correct them. These exercises in popular culture — the 181 pulp novels written by Lester Dent — are thus one of the most basic advocates for eugenics throughout the 1930s and ’40s. (more…)
2,106 words
Brian Aldiss
Moreau’s Other Island
Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1980
Moreau’s Other Island by the science fiction writer Brian Aldiss was published over thirty years ago, but it still retains a certain “bite” in socio-biological terms.
2,079 words
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
Story by Grant Morrison, art by Dave McKean
DC Comics, October 1989
Fredric Wertham, 1895–1981
1,247 words
In 1954 an obscure psychiatrist penned a book called Seduction of the Innocent which almost put paid to the entire comic book industry in the United States. The whole incident is almost forgotten today, but it is highly instructive over how “fire-storms” and cultural wars can break out. It is also reasonably true to say that–unlike the parallel film industry–it took American comics about three decades to fully ingest and recover from Doctor Wertham’s assault.
1,121 words
James Hadley Chase
No Orchids for Miss Blandish
London: Robert Hale, 1939
No Orchids for Miss Blandish was published in 1939 and later appeared in British editions by Robert Hale. Two films were made as a result of it (one of them by Robert Altman), and the Corgi/Transworld paperback editions have been sold all over the world. (more…)
