Albert Camus

For Paris

I’m half French. Paris remains my mother’s home though she hasn't lived there in forty years. She is utterly transformed when she returns to Paris. It’s a beautiful thing to witness. I nearly feel at home there. I spent as much time as I could there—all told, several months spread over a decade plus—and if my felicity with the language matched how I feel when walking Parisian streets, then it would be home for me too. The terror attacks in Paris yesterday are incomprehensible. Really, that’s what terror is—it’s the extreme fear that sets in when reason fails and words end.

The Responsibility to Save Bodies: Camus and Global Activism

I haven't blogged in the last month because I've been reworking my paper, "The Responsibility to Save Bodies: Camus and Global Activism" for a conference in October. I'm happy with the revision though I think the paper needs one more round of serious editing before I'm willing to let it go out to journals for review.

On Albert Camus's "Return to Tipasa"

I’ve been reading Camus for many years now. My appreciation for his writing continues to deepen. Recently, his lyrical essays have opened up to me. I had kept them at arm’s length because I fear that I already tend toward poetical romanticism, and they didn’t really fit what I wanted from Camus, the activist. Then something changed, or so it seems. I’ve been rereading “Return to Tipasa”* over the last year and enjoying its unfolding.