The announcement of this issue was circulated some months ago, but these past weeks have reassured the editors of the necessity of an enterprise seeking to draw together the best of contemporary progressive thought in order to provide the intellectual and emotional sustenance we need to survive this enormous contraction, and continue the work of overhauling our society. Although the A-Line was founded two years ago as a response to felt crisis, I believe we’d all agree that our current political order—home and beyond—has reached a not-to-be-doubted inflection point beyond which we can neither see, nor even guess. “Apocalypse Now and Then”—in its varied figurative and referential valence—lends its name to this timely issue that includes essays, poems, and images taking up the many dimensions of this national and global emergency— from the COVID-19 pandemic, to climate change, economic disaster, as well as the spectacle of violence and lawlessness at the highest levels of governance that currently defines US society.
Apocalypse Now and Then
Hortense J. Spillers
For all the tea in China, for all the oil in Texas
Rich Blint
Horseman No. 5
Nathan L. Grant
Dawn of Darkness
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
The Interlude
Anthony Reed
Frontline Blues and the Post-Rona Truth
Greg Tate
From Pandemic to Pan-Demos?
Christopher Winks
Errata in retro-prospect
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay
Terminality–the Ticking
Abou Farman
Heard Immunity
Charles Bernstein
from: DIARY NOTES MARCH-MAY 2020
Pierre Joris
eye to the eye of the storm
a selection
Gale Jackson
Mystic Speech in the Time of Catastrophe
Alex Dubilet
Earth Interregnum
Jesse Montgomery