Athenaeum Review

10/14/2025

Coming soon: Our new special issue on generative AI in the arts and humanities, guest edited by Nils Roemer, with contributions from Andrew F. Scott, Katherine Davies, Charissa Terranova, Katrina Rushing, and Heidi Rae Cooley!

Also featuring:
- Barry Schwabsky on Poet Laureate Arthur Sze
- Aaron Poochigian’s translation of Ovid’s The Art of Living
- Ed Simon on Holinshed and Hakluyt’s hidden epics
- Daniel Asia on three books about life and death
- Jonathan Hartmann on two versions of dystopia
- David Carrier on Venice
- Brian Allen on Murillo’s Jacob at the Meadows Museum.

Front Cover: Detail of Rebecca Jinxiu Han, Reflective Thinking on Digital Self-Expression, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

10/14/2025

Moses Pendleton, choreographer and founder of MOMIX, will receive the $150,000 Richard Brettell Award in the Arts at UT Dallas, presenting a lecture, dance performance and photography exhibit on November 2nd, 3rd and 4th!

brettell-award.utdallas.edu/moses-pendleton/

09/23/2025

In memoriam: Frederick Turner 1943-2025

𝐴𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑒𝑢𝑚 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤 mourns the passing of Frederick Turner (1943-2025), a great and generous supporter of the journal since its beginning.

09/23/2025

Arthur Sze has been named the 25th poet laureate of the United States.

In a preview of the fall issue of 𝘈𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘦𝘶𝘮 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸, Barry Schwabsky reflects on Sze's work:

"Sze wants to encompass as much as Whitman—perhaps more, since he lives in a time when 'America' would be a limiting term and not an expansive one, and therefore he ignores national boundaries whether geographic or ideological—but he does so without conjuring an image of the poet who ties it all together."

https://athenaeumreview.org/essay/simultaneous-sequential/

07/11/2025

We are pleased to announce that Issue 11 is available online and in print!

https://athenaeumreview.org/issue/11/

Front Cover: Detail of Anna Sebastian, What We May Also Do, 2024. Mixed media on paper mounted on ply, 170 x 150 cm. Courtesy the artist and Verdurin, London

06/18/2025

New on the podcast!

Christine Folch, author of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘠𝘦𝘳𝘣𝘢 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘦: 𝘈 𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, available from Princeton University Press and in a new Spanish edition

https://athenaeumreview.org/podcast/the-book-of-yerba-mate-a-conversation-with-christine-folch/

06/11/2025

New on the website!

Barry Schwabsky on the poetry of Edwin Denby:

"This artifice of the colloquial, the collision of tradition-drenched formality with streetwise argot, plays as large a part in Denby’s poetry as it did in his conversation, providing what Cal Revely-Calder calls the 'fussiness native to Denby’s style.'... Denby’s eccentric rhythms create a festival of surprises, full of starts and stops that nonetheless keep the reader moving inexorably forward."

https://athenaeumreview.org/essay/the-risk-is-part-of-the-rhythm/

05/30/2025

New on the podcast!
⁠
Border Documents⁠ is a new photobook from ⁠Arturo Soto,⁠ a photographer, writer and educator. It is “a personal archive of ordinary events that reveals how emotions become attached to public spaces.” Having grown up listening to his father’s stories about his youth in the twin cities of Juárez (Mexico) and El Paso (USA), fascinated by how much things had changed in just a generation, Soto compiled and narratively shaped his father’s memories, then photographed the sites where they occurred.

In this conversation: the concept behind the book; the structure of the narrative; Georges Perec and the infra-ordinary; biography and personal experience; the new book in relation to Soto’s other work; growing up, studying, working, and traveling in places from Mexico City to Oxford to Panama to Los Angeles; further reading on Ciudad Juárez and El Paso; and much more!

Listen on the web:
https://athenaeumreview.org/podcast/border-documents-a-conversation-with-arturo-soto/

Listen on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5GGqr6RF5oxkx4a5KFzePP?si=00cfc85923bf4efb

Border Documents:
https://www.eriskayconnection.com/border-documents/

Arturo Soto:
https://www.arturo-soto.com/

05/30/2025

New on the website! "Authenticity in Historical Film" by Ryan Michele Tidwell.

"The Romans’ pop-cultural presence in cinema produced such classics as Ben Hur, Cleopatra, Life of Brian, Spartacus, I, Claudius, and even the first Gladiator, along with a plethora of other movies, musicals, and television shows. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II and Federico Fellini’s Fellini Satyricon also use ancient Rome to entertain an audience, but in vastly different ways."

Read more: https://athenaeumreview.org/essay/authenticity-in-historical-film/

Photo: Ridley Scott and Paul Mescal on the set of 'Gladiator II' / Paramount Pictures

01/23/2025

A reflection for Holocaust Remembrance Day
by Dr. Mehak Burza

Remembrance is not just about looking backward. It's about looking forward. It is a commitment to shaping a just and equitable future.

01/23/2025

In a brand-new podcast hosted by the Bass School Dean, “Spool: Unwinding With Dr. Nils Roemer,” find relaxed conversations on the nature of creativity and innovation and the intersection of arts, humanities, and technology. Guests include NFL legend Anthony Dorsett, pianist Victor Rosenbaum, veteran and photojournalist Jeremy Lock, broadcaster Scott Farber, and more!

Dr. Nils Roemer, dean of the Bass School at UT Dallas, covers a wide range of topics in relaxed conversations on creativity, innovation and fascinating possibilities at the intersection of arts, humanities and technology.

08/26/2024

Coming soon: A special issue on the Edith and Peter O'Donnell Jr. Athenaeum!