Lapham’s Quarterly‘s new issue, which takes up the topic of the sea, begins with this 1757 quote from Edmund Burke: “The ocean is an object of no small terror. Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime.”
Limn‘s new issue is all about “sentinels,” defined as indicators announcing approaching dangers, things that make a future imperfect scrutable in the present. Bees, bears, machines, experts, the city, and more make appearances.
Rob Walker on what makes “good” street art over at Design Observer. For him, it’s all about playing with the actual materiality of spaces, a détournement that inserts “beauty and wonder into the lowliest, least spectacular, least obvious places we (fail to) see every day.”
Humanity has a three-part interview with James Ferguson. In revisiting his book The Anti-Politics Machine in Part I, he calls development “swarming state power.” In Part II, he reiterates his critique of critiques of neoliberalism. III discusses the role academics should be playing in political struggles surrounding development.