The Sex Lives of African Women

The Sex Lives of African Women, is an anthology of confessional accounts from across the African continent and the diaspora. The stories are sorted into three sections: self-discovery, freedom and healing. Each “sex life” is told in the subject’s own words. The result is a book that takes the reader into the beds of polygamous marriages in Senegal, to furtive lesbian hookups in toilets in Cairo and polyamorous clubs in the United States, but without any sensationalism or essentialism. Nesrine Malik, The Guardian

In “The Joy of Sweat,” (Norton) an entertaining and illuminating guide to the necessity and virtues of perspiration, the science journalist Sarah Everts points out that plenty of people pay good money to exude sweat while also paying good money to hide it. Jennifer Szalai, NYT

E con questi curiosi titoli vi auguro una buona estate. Ritornerò alla fine di agosto, inizio di settembre. 

Lab Leaks

What happens when an academic idea escapes into the wild? "The idea of a lab leak has gone, well, viral. As a political scientist, I cannot assess whether the evidence shows that COVID-19 emerged naturally or from laboratory procedures (although many experts strenuously disagree). Yet as a political scientist, I do think that my discipline can learn something from thinking seriously about our own “lab leaks” and the damage they could cause". Paul Musgrave, FP

Un lungo articolo sulle newsletters, un nuovo genere che pare sia in crescita. "The newsletter is the ultimate form for a moment in which writers feel pressure to produce a steady stream of advertisements for themselves". Molly Fischer, The Cut

Highly Irregular

Il titolo si riferisce a un divertente libro sulle stranezze della lingua inglese, Highly Irregular, di Arika Okrent (Oxford University Press). "Ms. Okrent investigates more or less familiar questions: Is the letter “y” a vowel or a consonant? What does it mean to say that the exception “proves” the rule? Why does English have so many synonyms? She also ponders whether “I am woe” would be better than “woe is me”; what egging someone on has to do with eggs; and why we don’t tell a restaurant server, “I’m a large spender. Make it a big pizza.” Henry Hitchings, WSJ

 

Project Cassandra: Three years ago, a small group of academics at a German university launched an unprecedented collaboration with the military – using novels to try to pinpoint the world’s next conflicts. [...]

The name of the initiative was Project Cassandra: for the next two years, university researchers would use their expertise to help the German defence ministry predict the future.

The academics weren’t AI specialists, or scientists, or political analysts. Instead, the people the colonels had sought out in a stuffy top-floor room were a small team of literary scholars led by Jürgen Wertheimer, a professor of comparative literature with wild curls and a penchant for black roll-necks. Philip Oltermann, The Guardian