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Masha Tupitsyn
Masha Tupitsyn is a writer, critic, and multi-media artist. She is the author of the books Like Someone in Love: An Addendum to Love Dog, Love Dog, LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film Beauty Talk & Monsters, the anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film. In 2015, she completed the film Love Sounds, a 24-hour audio-essay and history of love in English-speaking cinema. Her fiction and criticism have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She teaches film and gender studies at The New School. Her new film, Time Tells, is forthcoming in 2017.

Articles Available Online


The Rights Of Nerves

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September 2016

Masha Tupitsyn

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September 2016

‘I transform “Work” in its analytic meaning (the Work of Mourning, the Dream-Work) into the real “Work” — of writing.’ — Roland Barthes, Mourning...

Art

December 2013

When We Were Here: The 1990s in Film

Masha Tupitsyn

Art

December 2013

‘I remember touch. Pictures came with touch.’ -Daft Punk, ‘Touch’   In the 1990s, three important pre post-reality films...

Everywhere in the Japan of Yoko Tawada’s The Last Children of Tokyo, strange mutations unfold In the years (perhaps decades, or perhaps generations) since an environmental catastrophe, the basic tenets of biology have broken down Children are born weak, with birdlike bones and soft teeth The elderly, in turn, are youthful, athletic, seem to have been ‘robbed of death’ Men begin to experience menopausal symptoms as they age Everyone’s sex changes inexplicably and at random at least once in their lives   This is a vaguely post-Fukushima world, but dystopian or post-apocalyptic are both ill-fitting categories for The Last Children of Tokyo Instead, what Tawada has gifted us is a quiet new magical realism for the Anthropocene, which eco-philosopher Timothy Morton in Hyperobjects neatly summarises as the ‘inception of humanity as a geophysical force on a planetary scale’ In a move of narrative proficiency, Tawada never discloses the full details of the environmental disaster that catalysed these shifts in the natural order We’re given only pieces of half-information A major earthquake pushed the Japanese archipelago further away from the Asian continent (but when?) Pollutants (of what kind?) in the soil have now contaminated the asphalt in the streets   Because this is not science fiction, the facts of how the world came to be this way – why Japan has isolated itself in a sort of Edo renaissance, why only some foods are available and not others, or why telephones no longer exist all – matter less than the quotidian details surrounding Yoshiro and his great-grandson, Mumei Every morning for years, Yoshiro rents a dog as a jogging companion, though the word jogging has fallen into disuse (more on this shift in language later) He tries to prepare a breakfast that Mumei can safely consume, squeezing the juice from an orange and then cutting it into tiny pieces his great-grandson can actually chew Yoshiro accompanies Mumei to and from school, which is serious labour for Mumei, as the boy struggles to walk even short distances When Mumei gets too tired to keep going, Yoshiro simply puts him in the back carrier of his bicycle and

Contributor

August 2014

Masha Tupitsyn

Contributor

August 2014

Masha Tupitsyn is a writer, critic, and multi-media artist. She is the author of the books Like Someone in Love:...

Love Dog

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July 2013

Masha Tupitsyn

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July 2013

11 22 2011 – LOVE DOG     For months Hamlet has been floating around. Its book covers popping up everywhere. Non sequitur references...
Famous Tombs: Love in the 90s

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February 2013

Masha Tupitsyn

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February 2013

‘However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate—’ Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll   I. BEGINNING   I was a pre-teen when...

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Interview

November 2013

Interview with Javier Marías

Oli Hazzard

Interview

November 2013

Javier Marías is one of Spain’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists. He began writing fiction at an early age –...

poetry

July 2015

About Blue: Velestovo

Tatiana Daniliyants

TR. Katherine E. Young

poetry

July 2015

About Blue: Velestovo   1   …when I say the name: Velestovo, I think of deep blue. Of blue...

fiction

March 2014

The Garden of Credit Analyst Filton

Martin Monahan

fiction

March 2014

Ivan Filton had retired early. ‘I have been working a lot on my garden,’ declared Ivan Filton. ‘This is...

 

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