JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
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The cantata that upends the political order
DAVID YEARSLEY argues that Bach’s most beloved seasonal offering, the Christmas Oratorio, is anything but music of peace and goodwill
Adoration of the Magi (left) and Adoration of the Shepherds, both by anonymous disciples of the Cusco School, Peru, (1690 - 1720)
RON JACOBS welcomes the translation into English of an angry cry from the place they call the periphery
GUILLERMO THOMAS recommends a useful book aimed at informing activists with local examples of solidarity in action around the world
HENRY BELL is provoked by a book that looks toward, but does not fully explore the question of who gets to imagine the shapes of cities to come
MATTHEW HAWKINS surveys the upcoming programme of contemporary dance in Glasgow, and picks some highlights
‘Chance encounters are what keep us going,’ says novelist Haruki Murakami. In Amy, a chance encounter gives fresh perspective to memories of angst, hedonism and a charismatic teenage rebel.
CHRISTMAS is a dangerous time, for it threatens social instability, political disorder, even revolution. At the culmination of the story, kings kneel before a helpless baby — the powerful pay tribute to the seemingly powerless.
To understand the destabilising potency of Christmas, one has only to recall Andreas Karlstadt, an iconoclast in the literal sense, shouting the words of institution in German, not Latin, and offering both the communion cup and the wafer to the trembling hands and lips of the unconfessed laity in Wittenberg on December 25 1521, in the first years of the Lutheran Reformation.
Martin Luther’s 1522 sermon on the Epiphany can be read as part of his larger project to shore up the political order threatened by the radicalism of Karlstadt and others.
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