Leland de la Durantaye - Claremont McKenna College

Journalistic Articles

“Sedan Chairs and Turtles.” [Review essay on Walter Benjamin’s Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Age of Advanced Capitalism] The London Review of Books. Volume 35, Number 22. November 21, 2013
“Do the Right Thing: Calvino’s Letters.” [Review of Italo Calvino’s Letters: 1940-1985.] The Boston Review. September/October 2013. Vol. 38, no. 5. 53-59
“Lost in Thought” [Review of Peter Osborne’s Anywhere or Not At All: The Philosophy of Contemporary Art.] Artforum October 2013. 83-84
“Rough Old World: Tom Drury’s Pacific.” The Los Angeles Review of Books. September.
Review of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. Volume II: A Man in Love. The New York Times Book Review. June 21, 2013. 15
“Mode of Death: Transient Beauty.” [Essay on Giacomo Leopardi’s “Dialogue Between Fashion and Death.”] Cabinet. Spring 2013, Issue 49: 79-80
Review of Andrés Neuman’s Traveler of the Century. Bookforum. May 4
“Enchanted Hunter.” Review of Brian Boyd’s Stalking Nabokov. The New York Times Book Review. April 1, 2012. 9
“Son of a Nabokov.” [Essay discussing opera singer, race car driver, spy, son and translator, Dmitri Nabokov] The Boston Globe. Ideas section. March 18, 2012. D2
“I Went Out In The Extreme Cold, or On The Squares.” The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist. Catalogue for exhibition at the Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland. Cork, Ireland: Glucksmann Gallery, 2012. 35-42
“Canon, Tiber, Turtle, Venus.” Cabinet. Issue 44: 72-73: [24 Hours Communal Writing Project]
“Where Love Grows.” Review of Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot. The Boston Review. October 26, 2011. 1-4
“The Guggenheimlich Maneuver: Ascending Tino Sehgal’s Immaterial Art.” The Berlin Journal. Issue 21. Fall 2011. 22-27
“A Love Triangle From Brazil to Brooklyn.” Review of Thomas Pletzinger’s Funeral of a Dog. The New York Times Book Review. March 25, 2011. 11
“How To Be Happy: The Ethics of David Foster Wallace.” The Boston Review. March/April. 41-44
Review of Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World by Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Lévy. Bookforum. February 11, 2011
“Gods Willing.” [Review of John Banville’s The Infinities.] Bookforum. February/March 2010. Volume 16, Issue 5: 22
“Last Wishes: On Nabokov’s The Original of Laura.” The Boston Review. January/February 2010: 40-43
“The Sound of the Furies.” [Review of Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones.] Bookforum. February/March 2009
"An Introduction to Maurizio Cattelan.” Modern Painters. February 1, 2009.
Review of Mustapha Chérif’s Islam and the West: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. Bidoun. Winter 2008. Issue 16. 119-120.
“Otherwise.”Cabinet. Issue 31. Fall 2008. 34-42.: [Essay on the noble savage in modern art.]
“Rummaging Through Rauschenberg's Trash." Modern Painters. July/August 2008. 73-75.: [Essay on the artistic heritage of Robert Rauschenberg.]
“Ghost Stories for the Very Adult.” The Believer. January 2008. Volume 6, Number 1. 26-30.: [Essay on the eccentric art historian, adventurer and librarian Aby Warburg.]
"Readymade Remade: Pierre Pinoncelli and the Legacy of Duchamp's 'Fountains.'" Cabinet. Number 27. Winter 2007. 27-32.
"Being There. On the trail of Heidegger." Cabinet. Number 25. Spring 2007. 44-51: [Essay on life, philosophy and the woodland retreat of Martin Heidegger.]
“Iambic Imbroglio. Wrangling Over the Claims of Readers—and Dead Poets.” Harvard Magazine. January-February 2007. 20-21.: [Article discussing Elizabeth Bishop's posthumous poetry.]
"The Insider: Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes." Bookforum. December/January 2007.
“Cult of Impersonality.” The Boston Globe. Ideas section. D2. July 2, 2006.: [Article discussing Samuel Beckett's literary fame—and his ambivalent feelings about that fame.]
“Our Signature Tower.” The Boston Globe. Ideas section C2. May 14, 2006.
“Stars and Snipes.” Bookforum. April/May 2006. 7: [Interview with Bernard-Henri Lévy concerning his American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville.]
“Nevermind Euclid, Here's the Cubists.” The Boston Globe. Ideas section. D2. December 25, 2005: [Article on the origins of Cubism.]
“Swinging and Nothingness.” Village Voice. December 23, 2005: [Article on the lives of French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Descartes and Pascal.]
“Is Tennis Really Less Fun Than It Used To Be?” The Boston Globe. Ideas section. September 11, 2005.E4.
“The Original of Lolita. Fifty years after that triple trip of the tongue, Nabokov's nymphet is as mesmerizing as ever.” Village Voice September 9, 2005: [Article on the various influences—and claims to influence—on Nabokov's Lolita.]
“The seduction. At 50, Nabokov's 'Lolita' still seduces -- and disturbs.” Boston Sunday Globe. August 28, 2005. Ideas section. (syndicated by the Belgian daily De Standaard and the Australian weekly The Weekend Australian): [Article on the reception of Lolita.]
“The Omen. What's in a name?” Village Voice. August 5, 2005: [Article on Pope Benedict XVI and the history of papal naming.]
2005. “Pope and Circumstance. When the pontiff dies, the rituals commence.” Village Voice April 11. 18: [Article on the history of papal successions]
2004. “Of Spirit.” Village Voice. November 16. 41: [Article on Jacques Derrida and his Parisian seminars]
2004. Review of Michael Gorra’s The Bells in Their Silence. Travels Through Germany and Steven Ozment’s A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People. Rain Taxi
2004. “The Devils of Tennis.” Boston Globe. July 4. Ideas section. G4: [Article treating the history of tennis writing—from 13th century theological treatises to contemporary autobiographies by John McEnroe, Ilie Nastase and Boris Becker]
2003. “The Cleansing of the Elephants. Trumpeting, flapping, crying: a cultural history of the elephant from Ding Yunpeng to Gus Van Sant.” Village Voice. November 17. 54
2003. “Murder in the Library.” Boston Globe. November 2. Ideas section. G2-G3: [Article discussing the genre of academic detective fiction]
2003. “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” Boston Globe. June 29. Ideas section. D2-D3: [Article treating unlikely connections between German skydivers, politicians and performance artists]
2003. “It Came From the Abyss: Can Philosophy Be Filmed?” Boston Globe. February 2. Ideas section. D4: [Article on the documentary film Derrida and the compatibility of Derrida’s philosophy with the filmmakers’ task]