JF Now that the very old myths have so little circulation-outside of Medusa-what stands in their place? RG I am not very well versed in myths but I have always been fond of the story of Medusa. JF Interesting confusion perhaps, given that Cadmus was credited with the Phoenician alphabet: what are your favorite myths? JF I have matching Cadmuses in my living room, don’t you? RG What is a matching Cadmus? That sounds Latin and fancy. I would think you’d have a matching Cadmus? JF I just watched the second Hunger Games film, and was thinking about that great essay of yours. I don’t make my students address their issues to him. Peeta is short in stature but big in heart. JF He’s so little! Do you ever make your students address their issues to him?
John Freeman Now we start the pre-recording small talk: can I see your life-sized Peeta cut-out? (Peeta is a main character in The Hunger Games.) Over ten days I questioned her live on Twitter: a transparent interview of a sort. In the past five years, Gay has made Twitter her fencing arena of choice. The longer Mireille’s father holds out paying, the more abuse-sexual, emotional, and physical-her captors heap on her. Gay’s debut collection of stories, Ayiti, was published in 2011, and this year there are two books, Bad Feminist, a collection of essays, and An Untamed State, a harrowing novel about a well-to-do Haitian-American woman who visits her home country only to be kidnapped for ransom. “One of my favorite moments is when a guy says something desperately hopeful, like “Are you on the pill? I simply say, “No, are you?” They are abundant.” She is tired of women’s bodies having to bear the brunt of all reproductive issues. … If you want to be with an asshole, get a fresh asshole of your very own.
In an essay on female friendship, Gay instructs “Don’t flirt (too much), have sex, or engage in emotional affairs with your friends’ significant others. They have proven that not only does contemporary culture still need a tireless beat cop when it comes to thinking about women’s issues and how we talk about race and racial difference: but that our patrolwoman ought to be enormously funny. Her essays about film, politics, sports, and books for, the Rumpus and the Virginia Quarterly have poured out at an astonishing rate. Over the past decade, Gay has proven just how much she contains. “I contain multitudes,” she says cheerfully, when demonstrating a bit of identity negative capability. A pop culture fiend with a feminist streak, a woman who listens to hardcore rap but still calls out Chris Brown for his misogyny, she is a walking set of contradictions and refuses to apologize for them. Roxane Gay is the best thing to come out of Nebraska since the 1971 Cornhuskers football team. at the Whitney Biennial / “Supposium 2014” at MoMA Semiotext(e): 28 Pamphlets for the 2014 Whitney BiennialĬritical Practices, INC. The George Kuchar Reader, Edited by Andrew Lampert.Richard Barnett’s The Sick Rose: Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration
Paul Chan’s Selected Writings, 2000–2014 edited by George Baker and Eric Banks Soft/Not-soft Doppelgänger (12 Meditations)