Recently, a gentleman from Japan reached out to me regarding the pronunciation of “De Casseres.” He was writing an essay about Albert Stieglitz’ early 20th century photographic arts magazine, Camera Work, to which Benjamin De Casseres had contributed a number of articles from 1911 – 1913, and he needed to know the pronunciation in order to properly translate De Casseres’ … [Read more…]
So, a few days ago I received in the mail my first physical Benjamin De Casseres book. I’ve been collecting tons of his writings from online sources, but this is the first dead-tree version that I’ve collected. The book is Spinoza: Liberator of God and Man, and as a bonus, it’s a signed edition – … [Read more…]
I have written before about my obsession with Benjamin De Casseres. I lay the blame for this obsession squarely at Mythgard‘s feet, as I first discovered him through a 1936 pamphlet he wrote titled “The Individual against Moloch” while researching the paper I went on to present on Moloch at Mythmoot II. And I blame the … [Read more…]
I’m always fascinated when seemingly different subjects of my academic focus intersect in unexpected ways, as happened to me recently with Ursula K. Le Guin and Benjamin De Casseres. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised: It may be that I am drawn to both subjects because I had already identified certain similarities subconsciously. However, the rising to consciousness of those … [Read more…]
In my last post I noted that Ruth Graham’s argument distinguishing young adult fiction from more weighty stories is a perennial lamentation made by stalwarts of Literature. In a previous iteration last December, Terry Teachout descried the critical attention being given to “pop culture” over “high art,” and in my response I showed that such … [Read more…]