Zero gravity: The Left demands deference, the Right demands discipline. Reilly Pryma, in The Harper Review’s newest essay, demands nothing. Following Pynchon and Nietzsche, he sees Western society as putting undue pressure on individuals to live constrained, polite lives of self-denial and conformity, creating a modern-day mania of “guilt, self-criticism, and hopelessness.” “For too long,” he writes, “we have imagined the universe as something with set, defined laws that cannot be broken … [this] cannot lead to the good life.” Instead, he challenges the reader to defy the force of culturally-defined gravity and find happiness in being “weightless.” Throw off the weight of expectation, the demands of society, and be free—you will never be if you never try.
Brady Santoro, senior editor
Films fall apart: Die My Love (2026) is a harrowing portrait of a woman exploding at the seams of postpartum depression. Based on a 2012 novel by Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz, the film follows Grace, a struggling new mother, crawling around like a wild animal, walking the gravel roads and open forests of Montana with her newborn, trying but failing to get her lover to have sex with her.
Though UChicagoans heading into midterm doom might be envious of Grace’s copious “free time,” spent idling in tall grasses and abandoned farmlands, the film is undeniably stressful: peaceful scenes are assaulted by jarring cuts to desperate self-harm, screaming, and dancing, accompanied by severe increases in audio that had me plugging my ears in the usually balanced Doc Films theatre.
The film is undoubtedly unclear for one-time viewers in its vaguely nonlinear narrative and different shades of color grading, hinting at alternative realities, depressive hallucinations, and scenarios teetering on the edge of discomfort. Perhaps the construction matches the cause—Grace, turned inside out and unable to keep writing after giving birth, is reflected in the film’s wordless animalism.
But does this narrative method make it good? Are we creating films with more meaning by replacing “A24 Aesthetics” (substance-less movies made to look pretty) with “MUBI Mania” (substance-dubious movies made to make us feel crazy)? As much as I love stories of mothers in mental rapture, I’m skeptical. Cinema’s ouroboros continues to eat itself, playing it safe with a star-studded adaptation that brings little new to the pictures.
Mimi Mikhailov, contributing editor
Going under: Half the world’s population lives within one hundred miles of an ocean, but the vast bodies of water are largely flyover territory. Nearly sixty million people work on the world’s oceans (including “vigilante conservationists, defiant whalers, offshore repo men, sea-bound abortion providers, clandestine oil dumpers, elusive poachers, abandoned seafarers, and cast-adrift stowaways”) but the rest of us know little about what goes on out there. Ian Urbina, reporter and UChicago alum, wants to change that. Spinning off from a six-part New York Times investigation and best-selling book, Urbina founded the Outlaw Ocean Project in 2019 to support journalists covering “human rights, labor, and environmental concerns on the two thirds of the planet covered by water.”
After being sent a video of a point-blank murder at sea in 2015, Urbina made it his life’s work to document offshore atrocities, rarely accounted for and almost never investigated. There is no regulatory mechanism for the crimes (many of them truly horrific) that occur on international waters. Without transnational collaboration, an estimated 99 percent are never investigated, let alone prosecuted. In the deep-sea fishing industry—where twenty-hour shifts, human trafficking, and the loss of fingers are not uncommon—it is rare for captains to stock antibiotics for infected wounds, but routine to supply crew with amphetamines to fuel longer shifts.
Since publishing The Outlaw Ocean Urbina has made his and others’ reporting accessible through a podcast and a 10-part film series. The knowledge is there. The imperative to look and listen is on us.
Nora Holmes, contributing editor
Funny foreign frontiers: Maybe it was the AP US History callback of “Monroe Doctrine” in its title, maybe it was the comforting promise of elbow-patched clarity on foreign policy, or maybe it was the single-digit winds compelling us indoors, but students poured into R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science John J. Mearsheimer’s lecture last Thursday night, giving up on seats and piling on top of each other in the doorway.
Mearsheimer, whose snazzy website features a doctored painting of him as “Mearchiavelli,” is a longtime UChicagoan and prolific commentator. His public appearances (prodigiously documented by his Substack) are polished displays of a “great powers” theory of international relations. Unlike the international fumbling he described, “The Monroe Doctrine and the Invasion of Venezuela,” sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, was a highly-choreographed, straight-to-the-point affair. At five p.m. on the dot, Mearsheimer concessively apologized for not being able to explain fifteen other foreign affair topics related to Venezuela. Then, with a smirk, he retreated: “Truth be told, I’d love to.” And the offensive began. Continue reading here.
Zoë Feigelson, assistant editor
Image: William Blake, The Lovers’ Whirlwind, pen, ink, and watercolor, 1824–27 (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, England).