Christopher John Stephens

T he notion of a doppelgänger in literature has been used for centuries, with varying degrees of success. Think of the ghost of Hamlet’s father, materializing to haunt the tortured Denmark Prince about crimes transpired and crimes yet to be. Consider Edgar Allan Poe’s William Wilson, in which the double trails our hapless character through his life. There is a doppelgänger in Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Dostoyevsky’s The Double, Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr....

Boston-based writer Ken Liu Talks About ‘All That We See Or Seem,’ Life Parallels, AI, the Future and Present

The problem with many pop culture Critical Studies texts is that they take themselves too seriously. Readers need only go back to academic Camille Paglia, whose 1990 writing on then mega superstar Madonna tried to elevate the singer actress to the status of feminist icon. Paglia’s writing on Madonna has not aged well. More effective has been the 125 volumes and counting Open Court Philosophy series, which has effectively contextualized such subjects as Bob Dylan, Mister Rogers, and “The...