Crisis 22 is a work-in-progress on the Ukraine War.
Contents
Crisis 22 is divided into six sections: INTRODUCTIONS sets forth the main themes; 🗝 A Literary Premise explains the literary slant and 🌗 Shadow Stories supplies an overview; STATES OF MIND looks at the shock of the war and at how we might try to get a healthy psychological distance from it; CUNNING PLANS uses three Russian novels to critique Putin’s vision of Russian identity and empire; PUPPET MASTERS uses six postcolonial novels and a shadow theatre paradigm to present an opposite vision of the world, one which highlights liberal democracy and cultural understanding; FEARLESS LEADERS and CODA present political and creative takes on the war.
INTRODUCTIONS
🗝 A Literary Premise - I. The Play’s the Thing - Mirrors - II. Poetry & Unified Sensibility - Tragedy & Comedy - Achilles & Arjuna - Nine Novels
🌗 Shadow Stories ~ Introductions - States of Mind - Cunning Plans - Puppet Masters - Fearless Leaders - Coda
STATES OF MIND
⏳ The Ghost of Crises Past ~ Two Sonnets - The 1980s - Lines - Chaos
✈️ Dream Vacation 2005 ~ St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladímir, & Suzdal
⛱ Rip Van Winkle ~ Mojitos & a Cigar - El Profesor - Blissful Ignorance - Reveille
🌉 Jovanka on the Bridge ~ Jovanka (July 22, 2023) - Q & A (October 8, 2023)
☯️ Both In and Out of the Game ~ Options - Ostrichism - Ukraine 101 - Realism - Whitman
❄️ Political Modes of Being ~ Connections - Keats - Eliot - Aurelius - Pseudaurelius - Eyes - Religion - Violence
CUNNING PLANS
In Cunning Plans I use Gogol’s Dead Souls — as well as Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment — to criticize Putin’s false and grandiose claims about Ukraine, the West, the special military operation, the Russian soul, and the Russian sphere of influence.
🧥 Two Novels and an Overcoat ~ Dead Souls & Year - Gogol’s Overcoat
😵💫 Russian Souls ~ A Cunning Plan - The Russian Soul - Belinsky
✒️ Literature & Subversion ~ The Integrated Threat - Exceptionalism - Changing Course: From Gogol to Bulgakov
💰 Selling the Scheme
🧛🏻♂️ The Immoralities of Marmeladov and Raskolnikov
🚓 Crimes and Punishments
PUPPET MASTERS
In Puppet Masters I use Christopher Koch’s The Year of Dangerously — as well as Greene’s The Quiet American, Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Shame, & Haroun — to compare the old Cold War of the 1960s to the new Cold War of the 2020s, to illustrate the difficulty of seeing through the fog of war, to examine how authoritarian and religious rhetoric can lead to mass violence, and to explore political paradigms used in the global south.
🎭 Behind the Scenes ~ Five Points - The Wayang Kulit
☯️ Unified Sensibilities ~ The Political Uses of Literature - The Fractured Mirror - T.S. Eliot - Koch’s Year
⚔️ The Dangerous Years ~ Years - Puppetry - James Bond - Daughter of Darkness - Spoiler Alert
🌪 The Eye of the Storm ~ The State of Things - What Then Must We Do?
✨ The Dark Which Has No End ~ Strata Casting: Akasha & Accumulation - From Lamp to Lamp
🎙️ Words of Folly and Wisdom
⚔️ Battle of the Puppets
🇮🇳 India & the Many-Headed Monsters
🇵🇰 Pakistan & the Fall of the Poet
FEARLESS LEADERS
✊ Fearless Leader of the Global South ~ Overview - The New Bung Karno - Les Humiliés - Global Sing-Along
🇺🇦 Golden Bridges (July, 2022) ~ Past & Present - Blame - The Past - Solution - Sanctions - Action - Coda - Anthem
🇺🇸 / 🇷🇺 Exceptionalism (Dec. 2, 2022) ~ The Mad Cartographer (Aug. 2024) - Dec. 2022
🗽 Our Lady of the Harbour ~ Arms Race to the Grave (2023) - Questions - Setting Sail - Our Boys (2003)
☮︎ War: A Brief Playlist of Songs & Poems
CODA
🦋 The Tao of Putin (April, 2022)
⏳ AD / BC (July, 2022)
⚔️
Next: 🗝 A Literary Premise