Am I Being Authentic Yet?
How to be a poet, a feminist, a philosopher prince, and more
January 26, 2023
It’s the first week of the spring semester here at The New School, and we’re celebrating with an issue full of art and philosophy. Anne Waldman chats with Lindsey Scharold about the life of a bard, Clara Mattei unpacks the apparatus of austerity, Amalie Thieden explores the psychodrama of personal grooming, Alla Anatsko returns to the enchantments of The Little Prince, and David Lay Williams reminds us that the long history of economic inequality is matched by a legacy of principled opposition: Plato did not approve.
Welcome back to school.
Classics Reconsidered
“During childhood travels, and then on business trips, I seemed to constantly meet people who, out of the blue, would start talking to me about their love for the novella or showing me their Little Prince tattoos. Perhaps, some of those young (and not-so-young) adults sensed that I was one of them, one of those pensive fellow travelers, deeply infected by The Little Prince’s strange aura of melancholy.” Alla Anatsko visits New York’s Morgan Library & Museum, where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s original manuscript and drawings for The Little Prince are currently on display. (January 24, 2023)
Portrait of the Artist
In a conversation with Lindsey Scharold, poet Anne Waldman discusses her life in letters and her new book, Bard, Kinetic (Coffee House Press, 2023). “I’ve always felt art was, for want of a better word, a spiritual act which connects you up to all times, all places, all humans. Part of our humanity is to make these things. The origin of the word ‘poiesis’ has to do with making and putting things together. We’re all composites anyway, we’re impermanent. That sense of ephemerality can actually be inspiring: you’re making, you’re deconstructing, you're not holding on, you’re here to disappear on some level.” (January 25, 2023)
“Remember that no one begs you to be a poet. Not down on their knees for you to do that. You are self-anointed!” Read an excerpt from Bard, Kinetic, courtesy of Anne Waldman and Coffee House Press. (January 25, 2023)
Feminism Today
Amalie Thieden offers a contemporary perspective on a perennial question: To shave or not to shave? “Over the years, I’ve managed to refrain from sexist norms and practice as I preach, but body hair is still the last stubborn roadblock on my way to feeling like a good feminist.” (January 23, 2023)
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Economy
“Austerity must be understood for what it is and remains: an anti-democratic reaction to threats of bottom-up social change.” In an extract from her new book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (University of Chicago Press, 2022), Clara Mattei challenges the cultivated maxims of “honest, hardscrabble economics.” (January 9, 2023)
In addressing poverty, let’s not brush aside the moral concern of wealth inequality, warns David Lay Williams: the problem has troubled philosophers from Plato to John Stuart Mill. (January 11, 2023)