The New Inquiry

On the anniversary of the first viral social media campaign for military intervention, Andrew Lee reflects on Kony 2012 thenewinquiry.com/kony-2012-fore…

“Were we angels, they cry, the kingdom of heaven might be wrought for us out of neocolonial extraction and war. Not sweatshop fires or lithium mines but our personal failures of discernment and prudence delay …; to hasten paradise would surely justify any price.”

At the outset of AMC’s show Hoarders, hoarding was classified as a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder. By the end of its run, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual had graduated it to a condition all of its own. thenewinquiry.com/the-life-chang…

To be poor in the United States is in some ways like being poor anywhere else, but it is exceptional in that, thanks to the efforts of the good people of Dhaka and Juarez and Shenzhen, you can also accumulate an immense volume of stuf thenewinquiry.com/the-life-chang…

The award-winning and record-breaking A&E reality show Hoarders shows how the arc of American empire bends towards the garbage bin thenewinquiry.com/the-life-chang…

"How stupefying the power of Western hegemony can be when you identify with it. The US once seemingly conquered even time – its wars are “Forever” Wars. It’s only fitting that Westerners are now scrambling to evade the indignities of their lifespans."

"The Grimaldi boarding house stands in for the repressive, quasi-carceral structures of both the Italian Fascist state and the Catholic Church"

"De Céspedes’ writing has lots of plot, which makes you want to keep turning the page; but unlike Ferrante, and more like Natalia Ginzburg, the narrative is lean, the imagery evocative but minimal. Appropriately, perhaps, for an author who went on to pen an advice column"

Once banned by Mussolini, Alba De Céspedes' debut novel, There’s No Turning Back (Nessuna Torno Indietro, 1938), is out now under a new translation by Ann Goldstein, best known for her translations of Elena Ferrante's novels thenewinquiry.com/nessuna-torno-…

"Private capital needs land as a resource. They need coastal areas for tourism, farmland for industrial agriculture and urban land for upscale development. Poor people... had to be removed...to fulfil the needs of private capital" thenewinquiry.com/housing-crisis…

Over the past decade, a number of researchers have documented the incompatibility of Colombo's urban poor and high-rise apartments, but Sri Lanka was once a model of social housing

Under the Urban Regeneration Project (URP) and the Metropolitan Development Plan, the Sri Lankan government tried to transform Colombo into a uniform cityscape of apartment blocks, public transport and green spaces thenewinquiry.com/housing-crisis…

My long form piece on social housing in Sri Lanka for @thenewinquiry! Thanks for editing it @AyeshaASiddiqi thenewinquiry.com/housing-crisis…

"What #YoonSukYeol's martial law decree demonstrated was South Korea's intense political culture of militarization & violence, imposed & reinforced by US military occupation, that cannot be solved with a vote..." #양회동 #윤석열 #윤석열대통령 #한국 #조선 thenewinquiry.com/korea-under-ce…

“After annihilating New Deal and Great Society welfare programs for single-parent families, neoliberals and conservatives established policies that enshrined the moral virtue of legally affirmed nuclear marriages–” thenewinquiry.com/new-neighbor-w…

“To entertain its audience, the sitcom must seek dynamism outside the domestic sphere, but to preserve the family, it must force “closures, plural” on these x-factors.” thenewinquiry.com/new-neighbor-w…

The sitcom trope of the intrusive neighbor isn't required in an era that treats exclusion as a social necessity thenewinquiry.com/new-neighbor-w…

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“Seeing that the police were attacking a community that was joined together in an explicit rejection of something very obviously wrong, that was what empowered people to act with incredible strength and conviction.” thenewinquiry.com/set-the-terms-…