al-Mutaghatris
@al-mutaghatris.bsky.social
PhD in Arabic and Turkish literature (linguistic narratology, bioregionalism) / alt-ac career in SWANA education / eco-socialist / singing about left-wing Texas history with Texastextbooks.Bandcamp.com
We rewatched “Lost in Translation” for the first time in 20 years and it’s crazy how much I originally mistook what is clearly romantic interest as paternal camaraderie just because Bill Murray didn’t immediately and overtly go after Scarlett. Crazy how far norms have shifted for the better
December 6, 2025 at 8:46 PM
We rewatched “Lost in Translation” for the first time in 20 years and it’s crazy how much I originally mistook what is clearly romantic interest as paternal camaraderie just because Bill Murray didn’t immediately and overtly go after Scarlett. Crazy how far norms have shifted for the better
Bourgeois cultural decadence destroying itself according to its own inner logic, I only consume proletarian culture so I shall not shed a single tear www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/o...
Opinion | Netflix’s Swallowing of Warner Bros. Will Be the End of Hollywood
www.nytimes.com
December 6, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Bourgeois cultural decadence destroying itself according to its own inner logic, I only consume proletarian culture so I shall not shed a single tear www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/o...
Reposted by al-Mutaghatris
“In the publicly traded world of Netflix and the breathless business reporting that follows it around, the growing success of arthouses and revival houses is an inconvenience best ignored.” —A.S. Hamrah
A Total Breakdown of All the Easter Eggs | A. S. Hamrah
In December 2019, three months before the pandemic, I was standing on a subway platform in Brooklyn when I recognized a prominent older film critic also
www.nybooks.com
December 6, 2025 at 6:55 PM
“In the publicly traded world of Netflix and the breathless business reporting that follows it around, the growing success of arthouses and revival houses is an inconvenience best ignored.” —A.S. Hamrah
Reposted by al-Mutaghatris
وحين عدتُ إلى سوريا بعد إنهاء دراستي في الاتحاد السوفياتي، واجهت صعوبةً في العثور على عمل، فأدركتُ مجدداً أن الوطن في ظل سلطةٍ قائمة على الولاءات، لا يفتح ذراعيه لأبنائه ما لم يكونوا من المنظومة نفسها aljumhuriya.net/ar/2025/11/2...
السخرية أداة للتأريخ
حوار مع الكاتب السوري ممدوح حمادة
aljumhuriya.net
December 5, 2025 at 5:07 PM
وحين عدتُ إلى سوريا بعد إنهاء دراستي في الاتحاد السوفياتي، واجهت صعوبةً في العثور على عمل، فأدركتُ مجدداً أن الوطن في ظل سلطةٍ قائمة على الولاءات، لا يفتح ذراعيه لأبنائه ما لم يكونوا من المنظومة نفسها aljumhuriya.net/ar/2025/11/2...
Fantastic overview of the current state of music culture www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
The Same Stream Twice | Rob Arcand
Two recent books, Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine and Andrew deWaard’s Derivative Media, explore the consequences of these technological intermediaries for the music, film, and television industries. While P...
www.nplusonemag.com
December 5, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Fantastic overview of the current state of music culture www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
glad someone is finally asking why every single character endowed with magical powers has no democratic oversight
I wrote a bit for McSweeney's about Isaac Chotiner interviewing Santa Claus. Just a little something for the holiday season. Enjoy!
The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner Interviews Santa Claus
For several centuries, Santa Claus has been one of the most prolific mythical gift-givers in the world. Formerly known as Saint Nicholas of Myra, a...
www.mcsweeneys.net
December 4, 2025 at 8:09 PM
glad someone is finally asking why every single character endowed with magical powers has no democratic oversight
just an endlessly startling horror
More than 33,000 new images of detainees in Assad’s Syria provide further evidence of the regime’s ‘machinery of death’ www.irishtimes.com/world/middle...
Syria’s disappeared: leak of Assad torture photos reveals fate of thousands
More than 33,000 images of detainees reveal starvation, torture and death in Assad-era prisons
www.irishtimes.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:56 PM
just an endlessly startling horror
Reposted by al-Mutaghatris
More than 33,000 new images of detainees in Assad’s Syria provide further evidence of the regime’s ‘machinery of death’ www.irishtimes.com/world/middle...
Syria’s disappeared: leak of Assad torture photos reveals fate of thousands
More than 33,000 images of detainees reveal starvation, torture and death in Assad-era prisons
www.irishtimes.com
December 4, 2025 at 8:30 AM
More than 33,000 new images of detainees in Assad’s Syria provide further evidence of the regime’s ‘machinery of death’ www.irishtimes.com/world/middle...
"Nicosia is not only Europe’s last divided capital, it’s also the world’s only city with two museums of national struggle, each of which tells completely different stories." www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
Reconciliation versus Real Estate | Aaron Timms
More than fifty years since its thirty thousand inhabitants— most of them Greek-Cypriots—fled before the advancing Turkish army, the resort city of Varosha on Cyprus’s southeastern coast has been rebo...
www.nplusonemag.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:54 PM
"Nicosia is not only Europe’s last divided capital, it’s also the world’s only city with two museums of national struggle, each of which tells completely different stories." www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
this was my favorite episode of the year!
New @thedigradio.bsky.social, the left communist-democratic socialist synthesis you’ve been waiting for: it’s my ecumenical and anti-sectarian interview with Malcolm Harris on his lovely book What’s Left. www.thedigradio.com/podcast/what...
What’s Left w/ Malcolm Harris
Featuring Malcolm Harris on What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis. An open-minded and anti-sectarian discussion about an ecumenical book that plots out three paths forward for the left...
www.thedigradio.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:34 PM
this was my favorite episode of the year!
I spent an hour with this book in Istanbul a couple weeks ago and it was a wonderful and important collection of contemporary Turkish poetry in translation. I especially enjoyed Buğra Giritlioğlu's curation choices press.syr.edu/supressbooks...
Pulse of Contemporary Turkish, The – Syracuse University Press
press.syr.edu
December 4, 2025 at 12:51 PM
I spent an hour with this book in Istanbul a couple weeks ago and it was a wonderful and important collection of contemporary Turkish poetry in translation. I especially enjoyed Buğra Giritlioğlu's curation choices press.syr.edu/supressbooks...
Reposted by al-Mutaghatris
Want to see a circular bioeconomy, with minimal food waste and max energy recycling?
I learned a lot from this amazing story about ruthless efficiency in pursuit of customer service:
I learned a lot from this amazing story about ruthless efficiency in pursuit of customer service:
Mise en masse
How do you prepare 100,000 meals at sea?
www.economist.com
December 3, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Want to see a circular bioeconomy, with minimal food waste and max energy recycling?
I learned a lot from this amazing story about ruthless efficiency in pursuit of customer service:
I learned a lot from this amazing story about ruthless efficiency in pursuit of customer service:
my favorite is Spagett
December 2, 2025 at 6:49 PM
my favorite is Spagett
Reposted by al-Mutaghatris
My review of @alybatt.bsky.social's fantastic book "Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature" is out in Contemporary Political Theory. I had the pleasure of discussing it at @histmat.bsky.social launch last month in London with Andreas Malm and Søren Mau link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Free gifts: capitalism and the politics of nature - Contemporary Political Theory
Contemporary Political Theory -
link.springer.com
December 2, 2025 at 1:26 PM
My review of @alybatt.bsky.social's fantastic book "Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature" is out in Contemporary Political Theory. I had the pleasure of discussing it at @histmat.bsky.social launch last month in London with Andreas Malm and Søren Mau link.springer.com/article/10.1...
I am asking Santa for better democracy and infrastructure in Syria in 2026
In the coming year, Syria’s new parliament will have to prove its worth. Critics fear it will become a rubber-stamp institution
Syria’s new leader needs to start delivering
Ahmed al-Sharaa will probably get his wish with the lifting of international sanctions in early 2026. His focus must shift inward to deliver change within Syria
econ.st
December 2, 2025 at 3:44 PM
I am asking Santa for better democracy and infrastructure in Syria in 2026
Reposted by al-Mutaghatris
A veteran moving to the Pacific Northwest, then driving to DC to stage a mass shooting of government agents? Sounds like he assimilated into American culture pretty successfully.
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization
November 28, 2025 at 3:33 PM
A veteran moving to the Pacific Northwest, then driving to DC to stage a mass shooting of government agents? Sounds like he assimilated into American culture pretty successfully.
Reposted by al-Mutaghatris
On the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal, author of THE RAGING ERIE, Mark Ferrara, talks about the history of the Erie Canal and its legacy in New York. buff.ly/bahfUnt #ListenUP
The Erie Canal Marks 200 Years | All Of It | WNYC
This weekend marks the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal on October 25, 1825. The canal had a major impact on the economic and maritime power of New York City and Sta...
buff.ly
November 27, 2025 at 10:57 PM
On the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal, author of THE RAGING ERIE, Mark Ferrara, talks about the history of the Erie Canal and its legacy in New York. buff.ly/bahfUnt #ListenUP
a perfect example of my theory that Americans absolute zero knowledge of Indonesia, one of the most important countries in the world, is bananas
Jakarta, Indonesia’s vibrant, overcrowded and sinking capital, has displaced Tokyo as the most populated city in the world, according to the UN, thanks to its new way of counting urban populations.
Jakarta Overtakes Tokyo as World’s Largest City, UN Report Says
The capital of Indonesia surpassed Tokyo as the world’s most populous city after the United Nations overhauled how it measures urban populations.
nyti.ms
November 26, 2025 at 3:06 PM
a perfect example of my theory that Americans absolute zero knowledge of Indonesia, one of the most important countries in the world, is bananas
I stopped engaging with DSA once the DC chapter voted down a proposal to have a committee to organize social events and fun engagement. Socialist politics without fun and community is a dead end dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
Partyism Without the Party - Dissent Magazine
Zohran Mamdani’s victory was rooted in organizations that took up the base-building and mobilization functions that once fell to parties.
dissentmagazine.org
November 26, 2025 at 3:03 PM
I stopped engaging with DSA once the DC chapter voted down a proposal to have a committee to organize social events and fun engagement. Socialist politics without fun and community is a dead end dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group told the BMAG’s story in a landmark retrospective, the first of its kind to center this vital juncture in the development of modern Arab art. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
Taking Back the Baton | Ali Hassani
What initially appears to be a dialogue between geometric form, architectural allusion, and figuration transforms into a preadolescent coup d’état by scythe qua jumprope. It is, after all, Baghdad’s p...
www.nplusonemag.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group told the BMAG’s story in a landmark retrospective, the first of its kind to center this vital juncture in the development of modern Arab art. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
hell yeah
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
November 26, 2025 at 1:33 PM
hell yeah