Articles by Tony Wood
-
Reserve Armies of the Imagination
in NLR 82, July-August 2013, pp. 136-142
Subjects: Aesthetics , Art , Cinema
Tony Wood on Hito Steyerl, The Wretched of the Screen. Dilemmas of representation—aesthetic and political—in the age of the super-abundant image.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Collapse as Crucible
in NLR 74, March-April 2012, pp. 5-38
Subjects: Soviet Union and Russia
While Russia’s anti-Putin demonstrations have prompted talk of a civic awakening—led by a flat-pack middle class—the country’s overall social landscape remains largely unmapped. Tony Wood surveys its shifting structures since the Soviet collapse, and the consequences of marketization’s advance through the USSR’s ruins.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Silver and Lead
in NLR 70, July-August 2011, pp. 127-138
Subjects: Latin America and the Caribbean , Mexico
Tony Wood on Anabel Hernández, Los señores del narco. The structures of political complicity and corruption that have fuelled Mexico’s drug wars.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Good Riddance to New Labour
in NLR 62, March-April 2010, pp. 5-28
Subjects: Britain , Labour Movements and Parties
As the British general election approaches, a balance-sheet of New Labour’s thirteen years in office. The record of Blair and Brown—imperial wars abroad, subservience to the City at home—as so many reasons to cheer their downfall.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Latin America Tamed?
in NLR 58, July-August 2009, pp. 135-148
Subjects: Latin America and the Caribbean , Economic Policy
Tony Wood on Michael Reid, Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul. A revised neoliberal gospel for the region, courtesy of the Economist.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Contours of the Putin Era
in NLR 44, March-April 2007, pp. 53-68
Subjects: Economic Theory , Soviet Union and Russia
Responding to Vladimir Popov, Tony Wood examines the geographical and social distribution of Russia’s recent economic growth. What are the priorities and outlook of the emerging business-state elite—and whom will Putin’s ‘stabilization’ benefit?
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish, Turkish, Italian and Norwegian -
Celluloid and Plasma
in NLR 39, May-June 2006, pp. 141-147
Subjects: Aesthetics , Cinema
Tony Wood on Laura Mulvey, Death 24x a Second. How has the digital era changed the cinematic viewing experience—and the spectator? Freeze-frame fetishism and narrative disruption from Lumière to Kiarostami, via Hitchcock and Rossellini.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Annals of Utopia
in NLR 33, May-June 2005, pp. 118-132
Subjects: Literature , Soviet Union and Russia
Tony Wood on Andrey Platonov, Happy Moscow and Soul. Recently discovered works by the neglected giant of twentieth-century Russian letters. The singular language and multiple ambiguities of Platonov’s style, and heroic impasses of his life and times.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish and Greek -
The Case for Chechnya
in NLR 30, November-December 2004, pp. 5-36
Subjects: Soviet Union and Russia , War and Peace
Eager to embrace Putin, Western rulers and pundits continue to connive at the Russian occupation of Chechnya, as Moscow’s second murderous war in the Caucasus enters its sixth year. Traditions of resistance, popular demands for sovereignty and Russia’s brutal military response, in Europe’s forgotten colony.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish and Russian -
Vanishing Acts
in NLR 27, May-June 2004, pp. 143-150
Subjects: Architecture , Art
Tony Wood on Corinne Diserens, ed., Gordon Matta-Clark. Dissections of architectural space in the 60s and 70s, and their meaning in contemporary criticism. Did Matta-Clark’s disappearing art works leave behind a radical grin?
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
A Futurist Ark
in NLR 26, March-April 2004, pp. 129-135
Subjects: Art , Soviet Union and Russia
Tony Wood on John Bowlt et al., eds, Nikolai Khardzhiev, A Legacy Regained. Matchless archive of art and writings from avant-garde Russia, and an old man at the mercy of the West.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Tropical Vanguards
in NLR 24, November-December 2003, pp. 155-160
Subjects: Art , Latin America and the Caribbean
Tony Wood on David Craven, Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910–1990. Painters, writers and political upheavals in Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Metamorphoses of Prince M
in NLR 23, September-October 2003, pp. 155-164
Subjects: Literature , Soviet Union and Russia
Tony Wood on G. S. Smith, D. S. Mirsky. A Russian–English Life. White Guard officer, Eurasian exile, and repatriated Marxist—the prince who rewrote Russian literary history.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
A Suprematist Cinema?
in NLR 21, May-June 2003, pp. 154-160
Subjects: Cinema , Soviet Union and Russia
Tony Wood on Margarita Tupitsyn, Malevich and Film. The reasons why Russia’s greatest avant-garde artist preferred Dziga Vertov to Sergei Eisenstein.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
The Poet of Decembrism?
in NLR 19, January-February 2003, pp. 141-151
Subjects: Biography and Intellectual History , Literature
Tony Wood on T. J. Binyon, Pushkin: A Biography. Scouring the crust of patriotic myths from the image of Russia’s greatest poet.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
The Ecstatic Spiral
in NLR 18, November-December 2002, pp. 141-148
Subjects: Aesthetics , Cinema
Tony Wood on Jacques Rancière, La Fable cinématographique. From Eisenstein to Deleuze, luminous snapshots of the cinema that would substitute a single regime for historical periods.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Bering's Syndrome
in NLR 15, May-June 2002, pp. 147-156
Subjects: Literature , Soviet Union and Russia , United States
Tony Wood on Aleksandr Etkind, Tolkovanie puteshestvii. Rossiia i Amerika v travelogakh i intertekstakh. Russo-American literary–political relations, from Pushkin to Ayn Rand, in an ingeniously conciliatory mirror.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Woe to the Victor
in NLR 14, March-April 2002, pp. 159-165
Subjects: Biography and Intellectual History , Soviet Union and Russia
Tony Wood on Laurence Kelly, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran. The strange career of Alexander Griboyedov, Russia’s satirist playwright and predator envoy to Persia.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Putin's Colonial War
in NLR 11, September-October 2001, pp. 155-160
Subjects: Soviet Union and Russia
Tony Wood on Anna Politkovskaya, A Dirty War. Putin’s campaign of colonial repression in Chechnya, and the contradictions of a courageous journalist’s response.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
A Guest from the Past
in NLR 10, July-August 2001, pp. 170-176
Subjects: Biography and Intellectual History
Tony Wood on The Diaries of Nikolai Punin and N. N. Punin, Dnevniki. Pis’ma. The life and times of Russia’s leading theorist of the visual avant-garde, in times of war and revolution.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish -
Mellon in Magnitogorsk
in NLR 8, March-April 2001, pp. 158-164
Subjects: Political Theory and Strategy , Soviet Union and Russia , United States
Tony Wood on Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: the Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. USSR and USA as alternative models of mechanized happiness in the inter-war world—and their outcome at the end of the Cold War.
Read this article or download a PDF file
-
Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei German
in NLR 7, January-February 2001, pp. 99-107
Subjects: Cinema , Soviet Union and Russia
Virtually unknown in the West, Aleksei German is regarded by Russians as their most radical and original film director. Tony Wood considers his techniques of disorientation, and the craft of induced paranoia in his latest movie about the Doctors’ Plot of 1953—its title taken from Beria’s triumphant shout to his chauffeur.
Read this article or download a PDF file
Also available in Spanish