On Reddit there is a phenomenon known as the circlejerk subreddit: an offshoot of a main subreddit that exists to make jokes about the excesses of the sub’s culture. On r/scacirclejerk, women laugh about r/skincareaddiction’s tendency to post flawless selfies and then complain about their wrinkles and blemishes, or how 15-year-olds are deathly afraid ofContinue reading “Review: Why We Read (2022)”
Author Archives: Hannah Voss
falling through the air holding hands
or: precarity and a dream for academia
Writing, Depression, and Situational Worth
A few days ago I read a Rayne Fisher-Quann essay and fell into a kind of depression. Not because the content was depressing (though it was), but because it expressed something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I felt scooped, and frustrated that I had let thoughts sit in my brain without writingContinue reading “Writing, Depression, and Situational Worth”
Flying Home for Christmas
Hello and apologies for a long absence! I am writing this from the United States of America where I have finally been able to return for a very extended Christmas break. I have let writing for the blog slide a bit recently in order to wrap up some PhD odds and ends, but I wantedContinue reading “Flying Home for Christmas”
the Durham baths: director’s cut
Recently I had the privilege of having an essay of mine published in the Palatinate, the Durham student newspaper. I think it’s some of my best work so far, and I wanted to share it here, along with a bit of the piece I had to cut for length.
So you want to read H.D.?
H.D., born Hilda Doolittle, was a profoundly talented writer, a pioneer of modernism, and a literary visionary whose work is unlike any other I have ever read. You’ve also, possibly, never heard of her, or read anything she’s ever written. Despite the best efforts of her literary executor, Norman Holmes Pearson, after her death inContinue reading “So you want to read H.D.?”
Notes on the One Year Anniversary of Anne Stevenson’s Death
I don’t remember how I found Anne; I don’t know if I came across her in one of my poetry anthologies or if I found her through my obsessive googling about Oxford, fetishising some far-off life of academia that could only take place under the light reflecting off the windows of the Radcliffe Camera. IContinue reading “Notes on the One Year Anniversary of Anne Stevenson’s Death”
600 Words on a British Summer
In Britain, a blue sky is an imperative to drop what you’re doing and go out, to buy emergency sunscreen, to grab a canned gin and tonic and race to the park, where you can join the other sun-starved revellers and take your top off and lie face down as quickly as possible.
Audience in the Internet Age
Lately I have been noticing more and more the way we are motivated by the internet to turn our lives into content. To some extent, this is a pretty obvious side effect: a low barrier to access means it’s easy to have a platform to share your work, and that impulse is baked into howContinue reading “Audience in the Internet Age”
A Backwards Look at Durham
In August of last year, I was at home in San Antonio, digging through the various books accumulated by my mother over the course of her life. I found one on keeping a nature journal, and was immediately absorbed—the prospect of tracing the world around you as it happened seemed like a good way toContinue reading “A Backwards Look at Durham”
Hannah Voss 