Author Archives: Lee

Notes on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit §§674-677: Heaven and the Underworld

Posted on October 21, 2021 by Lee

In the ancient Greek conception of “the underworld,” the shades that dwell there are individual souls still, as they were in the world above. They are still cut off from the unknown, unknowable, and universal “fate” that determines the outcomes … Continue reading →

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Notes on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit §§673-674

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Lee

“Religion” is a concept that Hegel develops throughout his Phenomenology of Spirit. Here I’m going to look at the most abstract concept of religion that Hegel provides, the most minimal notion of what a religion must be in order to … Continue reading →

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Notes on Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Lee

The sun is shining and Berlin belongs to Hitler, is the almost final thought of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin. Christopher catches his reflection in a shop window and is horrified to see that he is smiling: sunshine is still … Continue reading →

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Notes on David S. Wills: Burroughs on Civilisation, Hallucination, and Telepathy

Posted on July 30, 2021 by Lee

For William Burroughs, the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a dividing point in history, marking the moment that Western civilisation finally ended. Could you really call a people capable of such an atrocity “civilised”? And so without civilisation, … Continue reading →

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The Pendulum

Posted on July 15, 2021 by Lee

In Chapter 5 of his book about the philosopher Leibniz, Gilles Deleuze ponders whether he should keep working this evening, or go to a nightclub. He’s not firmly in favour of either and he seems to prefer first the one … Continue reading →

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Beats and Hippos

Posted on July 7, 2021 by Lee

And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks is an early work of the Beat Generation, written in the winter of 1944-45 by William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac together, or separately in that they take it in turns throughout the … Continue reading →

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Zipporah

Posted on May 19, 2021 by Lee

Life into art: taking what you find, a smokestack or a button, and finding what is abstract in it, and thereby transmuting it into art. Miller, of course, the great example. Even in a button you can find the stuff … Continue reading →

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Meaningless to Whom, Exactly?

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Lee

An artist is someone who sees something that others don’t. And then makes that thing visible, in their work, for others to see. What the artist sees is something that did not exist before it was observed by the artist. … Continue reading →

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Scrooge

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Lee

“ … It was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.” Christmas would also be a serious time, for Scrooge. He would remember that night of his sudden … Continue reading →

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The Golden Age

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Lee

The ideal is always something inhuman: “These men were the so-called golden race, subjects of Cronus, who lived without cares or labour, eating only acorns, wild fruit, and honey that dripped from the trees, drinking the milk of sheep and … Continue reading →

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