Ethan
@etgibson.bsky.social
PhD student, etc.
unconsoling.substack.com
unconsoling.substack.com
For The Hobbyhorse, I wrote about Twin Peaks: The Return, and a novel that lets us see the former in a new light. I'm grateful to Adam for taking an interest in this piece, and for providing the editing it needed.
open.substack.com/pub/thehobby...
open.substack.com/pub/thehobby...
Magic Circles
On Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier and David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return
open.substack.com
May 6, 2025 at 4:59 PM
For The Hobbyhorse, I wrote about Twin Peaks: The Return, and a novel that lets us see the former in a new light. I'm grateful to Adam for taking an interest in this piece, and for providing the editing it needed.
open.substack.com/pub/thehobby...
open.substack.com/pub/thehobby...
Feeling like not applying to American PhD programs was wise
March 7, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Feeling like not applying to American PhD programs was wise
I wrote a little something about The Brutalist, a film I wish was better and more interesting.
open.substack.com/pub/unconsol...
open.substack.com/pub/unconsol...
March 2, 2025 at 11:32 PM
I wrote a little something about The Brutalist, a film I wish was better and more interesting.
open.substack.com/pub/unconsol...
open.substack.com/pub/unconsol...
Reposted by Ethan
I'm with Kelly here: deeply interested in leftism as a political project but have no interest whatsoever in leftism as a subculture. the stakes of leaving this behind are hopefully clearer by the day
Saw someone say, "End your friendships with people who are going about life like nothing is wrong." I will never understand people who think that further isolating ourselves from everyday people who don't get it is going to save us. It's not. Your judgment and disdain will not save us.
February 13, 2025 at 3:01 AM
I'm with Kelly here: deeply interested in leftism as a political project but have no interest whatsoever in leftism as a subculture. the stakes of leaving this behind are hopefully clearer by the day
I’ve posted an essay on Sebald (alongside Adorno, Bergson, Proust, Mann, Eliot, Woolf, Borges, et al.) that I wrote a few years ago. It’s no longer entirely representative of my thinking on modernism, but it does still describe why I think Sebald matters.
unconsoling.substack.com/p/w-g-sebald...
unconsoling.substack.com/p/w-g-sebald...
W. G. Sebald: A Belated Modernist
From an ethics of reading to the politics of form
unconsoling.substack.com
February 25, 2025 at 11:42 PM
I’ve posted an essay on Sebald (alongside Adorno, Bergson, Proust, Mann, Eliot, Woolf, Borges, et al.) that I wrote a few years ago. It’s no longer entirely representative of my thinking on modernism, but it does still describe why I think Sebald matters.
unconsoling.substack.com/p/w-g-sebald...
unconsoling.substack.com/p/w-g-sebald...
Reposted by Ethan
MLA 2027. Four of the then-remaining seven tenured literary scholars, all independently wealthy, delight the audience with fresh takes on the "novel of tariffs." Groundbreaking stuff: Knausgård, Rooney, Pynchon. All panelists agree: "These are no Little Dorrit."
February 2, 2025 at 9:10 PM
MLA 2027. Four of the then-remaining seven tenured literary scholars, all independently wealthy, delight the audience with fresh takes on the "novel of tariffs." Groundbreaking stuff: Knausgård, Rooney, Pynchon. All panelists agree: "These are no Little Dorrit."
Neither of these claims is even remotely true
'The Office' was pro-office propaganda whereas 'Severance' is the realistic show about how being at the office makes you go insane
January 26, 2025 at 7:25 AM
Neither of these claims is even remotely true
Reposted by Ethan
'I never thought leopards would break into the temple and drink all the sacrificial vessels dry,' says woman who calculated it in advance and incorporated it into the ritual
November 27, 2024 at 6:50 AM
'I never thought leopards would break into the temple and drink all the sacrificial vessels dry,' says woman who calculated it in advance and incorporated it into the ritual
Reposted by Ethan
Wenn ich mich bei X einlogge
November 20, 2024 at 9:50 PM
Wenn ich mich bei X einlogge
Reposted by Ethan
An ideology in Marx's sense is less an imaginary relation to something antecedent and more an ecological niche
November 20, 2024 at 9:48 AM
An ideology in Marx's sense is less an imaginary relation to something antecedent and more an ecological niche
Still waiting for this place to make me laugh. I'd settle for a chuckle
November 20, 2024 at 6:14 AM
Still waiting for this place to make me laugh. I'd settle for a chuckle
Reposted by Ethan
lord make me offline - but not yet
November 17, 2024 at 11:41 AM
lord make me offline - but not yet
Reposted by Ethan
The great translator and poet Michael Hofmann, who has the misfortune to teach in Florida, on the new US regime (from the NYRB blog):
www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...
www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...
![I feel we’ve been circling the drain for months, and now are being rinsed down the plughole. Hello, darkness, my old friend. I’m nauseous and have difficulty breathing. If I looked in the mirror—which I do often these days, purely as a function of disbelief, because I feel I no longer exist—I fancy I would see Ford Madox Ford, a soup-strainer mustache and the appearance of a boiled egg in his mouth, but actually only a gasp because “mustard gassed voiceless some seven miles behind the lines at Nancy or Belleau Wood.” As the poet said. Preserve my words, preserve my words. The wantonness and wickedness of it. I’m sorry for the rest of the world for having something as rancid and pampered and apparently resistless as America in it. Who ever thought male suffrage was a good idea? Come on in, the water’s boiling in this reddened and ever redder and reddening state. Not much meat on these snow crab legs, but you’ll enjoy the crack of your tax cut. Or is it the vertebra of the last surviving trade unionist? It says in our new constitution we’re allowed to hunt and fish. Well, halle-fucking-lujah. And $2 gas a birthright in perpetuity. If only it were some small and out of the way place. Make Armorica Great Again. Make Armorica Great Again. Make Armorica Great Again. But no, this is that shining city, and that last best hope. Gone, all gone. Stick a fork in it. There is only money, bare-faced lies, and evil intentions. The playground inversion of everything. You’re the fascist, you’re the racist, you’re the one threatening me with violence. It’s no consolation, but this country will not know what hit it, and first the low-information electors with their red caps for brains. No overstatement is possible. I feel species disgust. Of course, impetuous. Of course, poet and fine frenzy and all that. Of course, nonsense and hysteria. Oligarchopolis, here we come. Yes, we only live in it. It’s yours, and don’t I know it. [Character limit prevents posting the rest, sorry!]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yh57k4bayjoyienjoouwmjh6/bafkreic4jiuganas2m33gcgp5qx5u5v2miz4kegroiptn76imjliengxbe@jpeg)
November 17, 2024 at 7:20 AM
The great translator and poet Michael Hofmann, who has the misfortune to teach in Florida, on the new US regime (from the NYRB blog):
www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...
www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...
@richardcrossing.bsky.social welcome 😌
November 17, 2024 at 4:21 AM
@richardcrossing.bsky.social welcome 😌
I love this photo of Eliot in a bucket hat
November 15, 2024 at 12:06 AM
I love this photo of Eliot in a bucket hat
Reddit is down the hall and to the left
Oh, I’m sorry, this is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. You want the Tortured Poets Department, one door over.
November 14, 2024 at 4:30 AM
Reddit is down the hall and to the left
Reposted by Ethan
Here's your reminder to join the JAMESON READING GROUP, which will next meet on zoom on November 27! We'll be reading the blockbuster first section of THE POLITICAL UNCONSCIOUS, and will have @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social as our special guest! Register here: forms.gle/L2An44pHUc4U...
Jameson Reading Group November Meeting Registration
Our second monthly meeting will take place on November 24, 2pm Eastern/1pm Central/11am Pacific; Zoom invitation to follow! We will be reading a selection from The Political Unconscious
forms.gle
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 AM
Here's your reminder to join the JAMESON READING GROUP, which will next meet on zoom on November 27! We'll be reading the blockbuster first section of THE POLITICAL UNCONSCIOUS, and will have @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social as our special guest! Register here: forms.gle/L2An44pHUc4U...
I wrote an essay about King Lear, Stanley Cavell, and resistance to atrocity a few months ago substack.com/@ethangibson...
The Avoidance of Resistance
Notes on King Lear
substack.com
November 11, 2024 at 1:59 AM
I wrote an essay about King Lear, Stanley Cavell, and resistance to atrocity a few months ago substack.com/@ethangibson...
I wrote something about fiction and politics in a few of Graham Greene's novels, including The Quiet American and The End of the Affair.
History is What Hurts
On the Novelism of Graham Greene
unconsoling.substack.com
January 17, 2024 at 2:03 AM
I wrote something about fiction and politics in a few of Graham Greene's novels, including The Quiet American and The End of the Affair.
Is this still a thing
November 17, 2023 at 4:29 AM
Is this still a thing
Reposted by Ethan
Richard 'Reddit' Rorty
August 14, 2023 at 2:26 AM
Richard 'Reddit' Rorty
Reposted by Ethan
Y'all, this Immediacy book, there's simply going to be a before and an after
September 19, 2023 at 8:52 PM
Y'all, this Immediacy book, there's simply going to be a before and an after