Selected essays, articles and reports

End of a Saga: Andrzej Wajda’s Wałęsa: Man of Hope. Film International, posted July 6th, 2015. Review of the final film of Wajda’s trilogy on Polish labor struggles: “Man of Marble,” “Man of Iron” and “Wałęsa: Man of Hope.”

Podemos: Threat or Promise? Counterpunch, February 13, 2015. On insurgent Spanish politics.

Spain’s Many Currents of Protest.  Originally published in Norwegian translation on the website Radikal Portal, Spanias kreative protestbølge, 07.05.2013

On Bailey Glasco, ‘Constructing Mexico City: Colonial Conflicts over Culture, Space, and Authority’. H-LatAm (March, 2013)

Spain’s Indignados. THE VOORHIS VOICE, June 2012. On the 15 May movement that occupied public squares of  Spanish cities through the summer of 2011.

Roots & Wings. Literature and Society, 2007/09/30. Review of Ulrich Beck, Power in the Global Age: A New Global Political Economy.

Fox on Wiarda, Civil Society: The American Model and Third World Development. Published on H-LatAm (October, 2005)

Historic Reversal — Bombs and Ballots in Spain. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 16, 2004. On the Atocha railroad station bombing in Madrid, the failures of the Aznar government, and the stunning upset victory of the Socialist Party in national elections.

‘Minority Groups’ Have Outgrown Their Labels. The Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2003. On the limits of labeling people as “black,” “Hispanic” or other ethnic terms to predict or classify behavior.

A Love Affair Across the Centuries. Journal of Turkish Literature, Issue 1, 2001. Introduction to a monograph by Russian scholar Nicholas Martinovitch (1883-1954) on the 15th century Turkish poetess Mihri Khatun.

Moonbeams and Rectangles. Linnean Street, Summer 2000. On revolutionary illusions and bureaucratic rigidities in Cuba.

Languages Don’t Bind People. Newsday, Monday, December 18, 1995.
“OVER AND OVER, those who want to make English the United States’ one official language have claimed that this is necessary to prevent the balkanization of America.”

Mermaids and Other Fetishes: Images of Latin America. From “Translating Latin America: Culture as Text”. Translation Perspectives, VI, 1991: 135-144

Spirited Córdoba’s Riches: Argentina’s Second City Is A Repository of Colonial Architecture. The New York Times (Travel Section), Sunday, March 11, 1990

Argentina: Putting the ‘Perón’ Back in (Campaign of Carlos Saúl Menem). NACLA Report On The Americas, Nov/Dec 1989

Fiction and Politics: Interview with Ernesto Sabato. Threepenny Review, Winter 1988

LIBERTY AND PEOPLE. Ideological Analysis of the Political Writings of Simón Bolívar. 1983

Men of Wajda (Review Essay on Films Man of Iron and Man of Marble, by Andrzej Wajda), Film Criticism, Fall 1981

Inferior Status. The Nation, September 5, 1981

The Many Faces of Eva (Biographies of Eva Perón). In These Times, Aug. 27-Sep. 2, 1981

“Man of Marble,” Film Directed By Andrzej Wajda. In These Times, April 1-7, 1981 (Review)

The U.S. Press and the Cuban Exodus. Cuba Update, Fall 1980

Men of Wajda. Film Criticism, Vol. VI, No. 1, Fall 1981. Review of “Man of Marble” and “Man of Iron” directed by Andrzej Wajda. Discusses Polish labor struggles and the rise of Solidarity.

Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives, Ed. Asunción Lavrin. Américas, V. 32, N. 3, March 1980 (Review)

Discovery: Renzo De Felice on Fascism. Theory & Society January 1978 (Review)

The country of confusion. Minneapolis Tribune, July 23, 1978. Review of The Yugoslavs by Dusko Doder. On the precarious stability of this multi-ethnic state, foreshadowing future conflicts.

Importing U.S. “goods” — including torture. Minneapolis Tribune, June 25, 1978. Review of Hidden Terrors, by A. J. Langguth (on the C.I.A., torture, and Tupamaros in Uruguay)