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Fighting 21st Century Fascism

Ed Simon

Ed Simon is Public Humanities Special Faculty in the English Department at Carnegie Mellon University, the editor of the Pittsburgh Review of Books, staff writer at LitHub, and the author of several books, including Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain, named a “Best Book of 2024” by The New Yorker.

Articles

Religion Dispatches

In a Time of Chaos and Misrule, Mardi Gras' Subversive Message is Virtually Meaningless

Historically amongst the revelers at Venice’s celebrated Mardi Gras Carnival, are those costumed in the distinctive beaked mask of the Medico della Peste—the plague doctor. Wearing black robes and…
Ed Simon
Article
Religion Dispatches

Literary Critic George Steiner, Whose Views on Anti-Semitism Drew Controversy, Dies at 90

In 2019 the community of literary scholars marked the passing of the pugilistic and controversial critic Harold Bloom; now only two months into the new decade and we’ve lost the no-less ambitious…
Ed Simon
Article
Religion Dispatches

MLK Monument That Never Was, is a Reminder of the King Too Often Ignored

During the controversy surrounding the selection of a design for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, there was one unofficial proposal so quietly audacious that even the man who put it forward, art…
Ed Simon
Article