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You can read MTC August newsletter here: tinyurl.com/kc5jcf8y

Mid Theory Collective congratulates our editor Jay Shelat @jshelat1.bsky.social 🎉

Emily Coccia pens an anti-eulogy for 'Hacks,' and an ode to the queer fun of making thing, hard and hacky things with others even when, especially when, nothing is guaranteed.

An Anti-Eulogy for ‘Hacks’Because they’re not just writing jokes; they’re writing a years-long love letter to each other.  As a rule, Deborah Vance doesn’t do funerals. Neither, it turns out, does Hacks (2021-26), whic…mid-theory.com

For our latest installment of Adaptation Anxiety series, Nathan Likert reviews The Odyssey and what it says about the director's futile guilt & generational angst! "Homer’s text thus becomes a Trojan horse through which the contemporary can be litigated."

What Can A Homer, Or A Nolan, Offer the Future?Adaptation is everywhere! In 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. We ask not whet…mid-theory.com

"I recognize and even admire that date’s characters’ failure of action is the play’s subject itself rather than a failure of the play." Hanu Shahdadpuri reviews Jake Flume’s 'date.'

The Flat Theatricality of the Scroll: Review of Jake Flume’s ‘date’date feels, then, like an anti-drama trying to become a drama. Another name for the play might be Two Characters in Search of a Desire. On the trip uptown from Chicago’s Hyde Park to Humboldt Park’…mid-theory.com

MTC July newsletter is full of all the things you might have missed and might want to know! Including information about our August job market workshop. Read the full newsletter here and subscribe: tinyurl.com/56n6n9hb

Our next meeting of Capital vol. 1 reading group will be this Friday, July 10 from 3-5pm ET. We will be discussing Part 3: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value & Part 4: The Production of Relative Surplus-Value. Sign up here for the zoom link. All welcome even if you didn't come to the first.

MTC Reading GroupsRead With Us: Below you will find our upcoming and ongoing reading series. If you’d like to lead a reading group for MTC, please get in touch with us at editorial@mid-theory.com MTc 2026 Big Book S…mid-theory.com

It's Thursday, which means a new MTC essay! Today, MTC contributing writer, Omid Bagherli reviews Ben Lerner TRANSCRIPTION, a novel about what goes (un)recorded between men. "In Lerner’s works, this sense of an extraordinary but intangible connection is what wonder and paranoia have in common."

Under the Influence: A Review of Ben Lerner’s ‘Transcription’In Lerner’s works, this sense of an extraordinary but intangible connection is what wonder and paranoia have in common. It’s no secret that Ben Lerner admires John Ashbery. Not only is the title of…mid-theory.com

For MTC, Rahul Sen reviews Richie Hofmann's new book of poems and what he calls "the dampness" of Hofmann's poetics.

Sweat, Salt, Sex: Richie Hofmann’s ‘The Bronze Arms’Even though the first-person speaker dies midway, the poem continues after his death. It is as if the speaker returns from the dead to complete the poem. Richie Hofmann’s third collection of poems,…mid-theory.com

"If there’s any illicit desire at work in Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” it’s the way the movie lusts after other movies." Read our latest installment in our Adaptation Anxiety series!

Emerald Fennell’s Love Affair with 1939Adaptation is everywhere! In 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. We ask not whet…mid-theory.com

Our Adaptation Anxiety series continues. In this latest installation, Maddy Trépanier traces a different source text for Emerald Fennell's adaption of the classic gothic novel. "If there’s any illicit desire at work in Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” it’s the way the movie lusts after other movies."

Emerald Fennell’s Love Affair with 1939Adaptation is everywhere! In 2026, MTC is running a new series called Adaptation Anxiety, where new and returning writers consider literary adaptations from the last few years. We ask not whet…mid-theory.com

This is happening THIS AFTERNOON, Friday at 3pm ET. There is still time to sign up. Sign up here to get the zoom link: mid-theory.com/mtc-writing-...

It's Thursday, which means a new MTC essay! This week Sarah Hopkinson pens a studied and stunning review of Karen Solie's collection of poems, 'Wellwater.' "...in Wellwater, there is no “Away” for waste, toxins, objects or even memories: what we try to abandon, someone else will have to inherit."

What Lies Beneath in Karen Solie’s ‘Wellwater’“The eternal silences of these infinite spaces frightens me.”  — Pascal, Pensées, 206. Karen Solie’s latest poetry collection Wellwater begins underground, in the invisible spaces where secrets, pa…mid-theory.com

To kickoff our summer workshop series, MTC will host a workshop on the book proposal process, featuring senior editors at three different university presses. Our meeting will take place on Friday June 5 @ 3pm ET. Sign up below to receive the zoom link. mid-theory.com/mtc-writing-...

For MTC, Yiwen Wu reviews 'Rhynoceron,' presented at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival in January 2026. "...dramaturgically structured as two parts: the first half from the perspective of gawking gaze of human collectors and the second half from that of the animal, the rhinoceron."

‘Rhynoceron’: A History of MistakesAt the very end of the play, as well as in history, the rhinoceros drowns in the sea on the boat ride to Europe. Tracing the events surrounding the arrival of a one-horned Indian rhinoceros to Rena…mid-theory.com

For this week's essay, Sarah Sgro takes on "ideological sweat," mule runs, and the many ecosystems of Strava. Read it or it didn't happen. "Slop and sweat are not so much poison and its antidote as messy co-pollutants."

On Sweat-Posting and Strava’s Moral EconomySweat isn’t so much an antidote to slop as the condition that always, everywhere, undergirds its production.  In the summer of 2022, fighting grad school burnout and making peace with my loomi…mid-theory.com

You can MTC May Newsletter in the link below. And if you are not a subscriber to our monthly newsletter, then please join us to be in the loop on what we are up to. We promise not to spam! mid-theory.com?mailpoet_rou...

"The Pitt, making apparent how morbidity flourishes through and not despite the secular gaze that structures it, refuses to participate in the revolt against mourning. This pessimism is The Pitt’s greatest virtue; it cannot imagine an alternative form of revolt." Evan Goldstein on The Pitt

The Prayers and Tears of Dr. Robby“For the ransom of life is costly and can never suffice, that one should live on forever and never see the Pit.”  — Psalm 49:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version) Trying to understand the modern …mid-theory.com

For MTC, Evan Goldstein pens this absolutely stunning and studied piece of religion in The Pitt. "Being secular is unbearable, but one cannot be otherwise; religion, in the most positive formation the show can give it, is at best something we remember fondly."

The Prayers and Tears of Dr. Robby“For the ransom of life is costly and can never suffice, that one should live on forever and never see the Pit.”  — Psalm 49:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version) Trying to understand the modern age, …mid-theory.com

New at MTC: Marcus Prasad returns with a heady and careful reading of Lanthimos’ BUGONIA which prompts us to reflect on just how far we might be willing to reach for meaning and for the chance to explain away the daily tragedy of having our lives stolen by extractive capitalism.

On Bugonia’s Suicidal IdeologiesTeddy’s conspiratorial thinking therefore exposes, in its excesses, the leaps of faith required of all belief, especially those related to the future. Every one of us believes in something. Whether…mid-theory.com