Substack Roundup: February 25, 2021-April 8, 2021

Hey, readers and followers! As many of you know, some time ago I started a new newsletter over at Substack called Omnivorous. Since I last posted an update here way back in February, I thought I’d give y’all another, so you can see what you’ve been missing out on over there.

In “Can the Classics Be Saved?” I talk about the crisis currently confronting the field of classical studies as it wrestles with issues of race and its own colonialist past, while in “How Watching Old Movies with my Grandma Turned Me Gay,” I talk about how, you guessed it, watching classic Hollywood movies with my Grandma was key to my development as a gay man. I take Martin Scorsese’s myopia to task in an essay on the MCU, and I talk about the DCEU in two essays, one about Zack Snyder and the dark side of the epic and the other about the differences between Birds of Prey and Suicide Squad. There were also reviews of a biography of Rock Hudson, a biography of Cary Grant, and lengthy essays about the queer joy of Doris Day, gazing at extinction, and the sublime joy of Schitt’s Creek.

On the political side of the ledger, there were reviews of a biography of Nancy Pelosi, Masha Gessen’s insightful book on surviving autocracy, a book on the rise of the modern Senate, and a brief biography of President Joe Biden.

Coming up, you’ll get to read a lengthy interview with the one and only Jane Kolven (author of queer romances), an examination of the HBO series Chernobyl in light of COVID-19, and a review of a book on Queen Elizabeth II.

Don’t forget: subscribing to Omnivorous is free, but I always love to see those paid subscriptions!