I have always been fascinated by one composer I consider to be the most dominant figure in twentieth century music – and culture as a whole – both through creative accomplishment and influence over others. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) was a Russian composer who infamously followed three compositional styles: Nationalism, Neo-Classicism and Serialism. Stravinsky first...
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Harriet Evans demystifies our literary snobbery. People are always surprised to discover that many of my favourite books belong to the much-derided fantasy sub-genre of fiction.  “But,” they exclaim, “you’re an English Literature student – surely that stuff isn’t literature?” Simply put, it is assumed that “literary” fiction, in the form of the short...
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Lewis Anton Earl explores the impact of the e-reader upon the experience of reading. Much has been written about both the consumer and cultural implications of the new generation of e-readers. The product’s market potential, social symbolism and physical features have been thoroughly dissected. But what of the fundamentally different sensual experience which the...
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Marnie Richards can’t make an emotional investment in an e-reader. At the end of January this year, Apple unveiled their latest creation: the ‘iPad’. The US release of this tablet computer coincided with a new Apple iBookstore, with the large screen of the portable iPad perfect for reading e-books. This has been hailed as...
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Holly Phillips confronts the inherently violent structures of mainstream pornography. Let’s face it: no one likes a corpse-fucker. Indeed, the UK law enacted on 29th of January 2009 went so far as to criminalise the production and possession of images, including necrophiliac porn, which it defined as ‘extreme pornography’. Under this legislation ‘extreme pornography’ constitutes...
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Justin Bailey explores the criminal beauty of The Big Sleep. At seven-twenty a single flash of hard white light shot out of Geiger’s house like a wave of summer lightning. As the darkness folded back on it and ate it up a thin tinkling scream echoed out and lost itself among the rain drenched trees....
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