With the help of Our Final Hour author Martin Rees, Cambridge will soon open a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. The Centre will investigate the threats posed by “artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology.” To my ears, this sounds an awful lot like Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, which was memorably depicted in John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “Violence of the Lambs.”
Choose Your Own Apocalypse: Skynet or Stingrays
Tell Us a Story
Why do the British tell the best children’s stories? Perhaps because their culture has remained in touch with its pagan folklore, whereas in the United States, more pragmatic tales of morality, Christian obedience, and bootstrap-lifting rose to prominence. Also, picture books: general good thing for children or roadmap to total the moral collapse of society?
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Prison Poetry
Over at The Paris Review, Max Nelson writes about prison literature, from John Clare to Christopher Smart.
TransAtlantic Sneak Peek
The folks at Goodreads provide an exclusive sneak peek at Colum McCann’s forthcoming novel, TransAtlantic. The book, which will publish in June, was featured on our Great 2013 Book Preview a few months back.
Please, Please, Please, Let Charles Dickens Get What He Wants
Charles Dickens becomes an honorary member of The Smiths in BBC’s Horrible Histories music video. My favorite lyric: “Whilst writing Edwin Drood, a train crash didn’t help my mood.”
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Remember to Tip Your Archivists
Thanks to the work of archivists at The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, two scholars have unearthed a 1901 play by Edith Wharton called “The Shadow of a Doubt,” reports The Guardian. “After all this time, nobody thought there were long, full scale, completed, original, professional works by Wharton still out there that we didn’t know about. But evidently there are. In 2017, Edith Wharton continues to surprise.” Pair with this reflection on the role of New York City in Wharton’s novels.
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