Harper's Magazine January 2024

Renéssance Men In his review of All Desire Is a Desire for Being, Cynthia Haven’s selection of René Girard’s writings [“Overwhelming and Collective Murder,” Reviews, November], Sam Kriss contrasts Girard’s singular (not to say single-minded) vision of society with today’s scholars, who, he claims, are unable to generate “grand unifying theories.” Girard drew from his early-career studies of literary figures such as Proust the insight that desire is essentially imitative (or mimetic) rather than straightforwardly directed toward its apparent objects. Eve Sedgwick, who made a similar point in Between Men, her foundational work of queer theory, later noted that Girard’s interest in elevating these observations to the status of general psychological truths was essentially religious. Arguing that imitative desires scale up from the triangles of our erotic lives to collective…

For some months I’ve been living in Rome, up on the hill called the Gianicolo, which slopes down to the western bank of the Tiber. In antiquity it was the site of several water mills, used to grind grain that would be distributed to citizens—the bread in the “bread and circuses” of Juvenal’s famous formulation. A minute or two from our apartment is the Acqua Paola, a massive Baroque fountain erected at the beginning of the seventeenth century to glorify Pope Paul V. From there one has a panoramic view of the towers and domes of the old city, and tourists are taken up to admire it in various picturesque vehicles—Vespas and sidecars, vintage Fiat 500s, golf-cart-like contraptions that seat six and look like they could easily tip over. Every…

We try to think of ourselves existing in history, like people waiting in line. More or less patient, but with our fingers crossed, trusting that someone will be in charge. That queue is scattered now; we are left in an unmapped zone where the facts are uncertain, and dreams struggle with numbness—isn’t that the mood of modern advertising? We would prefer to hold on to reliability. We would rather not worry, and we say that TV is there to take our minds off all the bad stuff. But we gave up on our contract to stay real or rational some time ago. You may not remember this as an event; it happened too long ago. The risk or incursion was not much examined at the time, because the new toy…

Having bedbugs is no laughing matter.No one is safe.Bedbugs do not rest.They run over us in broad daylight.I spent my days searching for them, killing them,trying to make them flee, but it didn’t work.I lifted up my mattress, and they were there.I lifted up my sheet. There was one there.Even in the train there are pureed bedbugs.The state must urgently bring together all thestakeholders concerned in order to deploy anaction plan commensurate with this scourge.Bedbugs are not a right-wing or a left-wing issue.All major cities are concerned.We need a collective mobilization.We must not fall into madness.Everyone is panicking.I’ve had nightmares.I consulted a dermatologist and two GPs.I won’t say that I’ve had PTSD, but it’s not farfrom the truth.I will undoubtedly try hypnosis.There is no threat to the Olympic Games.Bedbugs existed…

OCTOBER 9 I’m the mother of two children, one of them a two-month-old baby. As confusion filled my mind, I started putting my children’s clothes into a bag along with our IDs and passports, a routine I’ve developed during military escalations. Following a brief, tense discussion with my husband, we decided to evacuate to my parents’ home, which is in a safer area of Gaza. Outside on the street, we saw neighbors with luggage also heading to safer places. I was relieved when I arrived at my parents’ house and was greeted by a cheerful chaos. My three married brothers had also come with their families to seek safety and the family gathered around the television. While watching the news, I thought of Israel’s response. How violent and dangerous would…

That Israel desist from the removal and resettlement of Palestine refugees in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and from the destruction of their shelters. That Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan, are illegal. That all measures and actions taken by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory are in violation of the Geneva Convention. That Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territory, its diversion of water resources, its depletion of the natural and economic resources of the occupied territories, and its displacement and deportation of the population of those territories, are without legal validity. That the Israeli occupation is contradictory to the basic requirements for the social and economic development of the Palestinian people. That the global community increase their…