in Culture Digest | 13 APR 18

Weekend Reading List: Making Phrygia Great Again

The politics of the red cap, a tribute to Studio Ghibli cofounder, and rewatching The Breakfast Club in the age of #MeToo

in Culture Digest | 13 APR 18

Martin Puryear, Big Phrygian, 2010–14, Glenstone Museum, Potomac, MD, USA. Courtesy: Matthew Marks Gallery, New York; photograph: Ron Amstutz © Martin Puryear

  • Sarah Bond looks at the politics of the red hat before the craze for Trump’s MAGA caps – if today they are code for isolationism and exclusionism, they were once symbols of freedom and citizenship.
     
  • ‘How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose? What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it?’ In the age of #Metoo, Molly Ringwald revisits the films that made her famous.
     
  • Is James Wood prepared for the return of politics as a dominant force in the novel?
     
  • Darran Anderson pays tribute to Studio Ghibli cofounder Isao Takahata – who died last week – and the mesmeric, intimate moments that fill his classic 1988 anime Grave of the Fireflies: ‘a tattered umbrella, the rattle of Sakuma drops sweets in a tin, the echoes of a child’s voice and footsteps, and the bioluminescent dance of fireflies.’
     
  • ‘Without leadership, it’s impossible to produce coherent, lasting change,’ argues Eliane Glaser. How might the Left make a positive case for authority?
     
  • ‘It seems as if only Muslim countries in whose wars the West is involved can produce artists for the global market’ – don’t miss Faisal Devji on contemporary art from the Muslim world.
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