the attention span

Canan (Ja’anan) Marasligil
  • 0.0 (0)
  • BOOKS
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil (she/they) is a multilingual writer, artist, literary translator based in Amsterdam. She publishes a newsletter and podcast titled The Attention Span, where they can take the time to reflect, to analyse and to imagine our societies through writing, art and culture. Whether you are a writer, a translator, a reader, a professional working in the arts, culture or literature, or someone who likes to take the time to reflect on the world we live in through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature, ‘The Attention Span’ is the space for you. So do subscribe! Go to theattentionspan.com/subscribe to join the newsletter, or simply find The Attention Span on your favourite pod catcher. You can also support Canan’s work via www.patreon.com/theattentionspan

  1. 05/22/2024

    27 - Ava DuVernay's Political Courage

    Welcome to issue twenty-seven of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Subscribe: www.theattentionspan.com/subscribe Support: When I launched the attention span newsletter, thoughtful friends convinced me to start a Patreon page. I received support for a full year from some of you, which has allowed me to pay for logistical costs. I stopped the Patreon page to simplify supporting ways to one-off payments starting at 2,50 EUR. Do support if you can and want to: via PAYPAL.EPISODE 27 SHOW NOTES The poem I am referring to: by Emily Dickinson, put into music by Pete Josef, “Hope”. Ava DuVernay’s limited series When They See Us.The book Caste: The Origins of our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson.Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class, a groundbreaking study conducted by a black and a white couple: Allison Davis, Elizabeth Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner.Ava DuVernay turned to philanthropists to finance her film.Origin is available for rent or purchase on different streaming platforms (Apple TV in The Netherlands).WATCHTalking of artists with political courage, this is also one great example: Macklemore’s protest song: HIND'S HALL. The title is a reference to pro-Palestinian activists’ renaming of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University to "Hind's Hall" in honour of Hind Rajab, the Palestinian six-year-old killed by Israeli forces. I invite you to watch the video clip online. Not only does Macklemore speak truth, but he’s one of the rare artists with such a gigantic platform in the music industry, to openly take a stand against the funding of violence by his government. I’m not sure what the others staying silent are afraid of, since Macklemore keeps giving sold out concerts in arenas across the world. He is creating solidarity with a powerful discourse of love and demand for freedom for all, against violence and hatred, he stands against polarization (see for instance this poignant video he shared on his Instagram page). We’re hungry for such care and call to love. I wish our politicians and the media would carry discourses like this one instead of dividing us all through fear. LISTENWhere is your pride, a song by Moby with Benjamin Zephaniah. Writer, poet, professor and musician Benjamin Zephaniah died on 7 December 2023, at the age of 65, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks previously. It was a terrible shock and immense loss. The suddenty of his death is a painful reminder of the fragility of life. Moby wrote a song last year together with Zephaniah, whom he says, on his Instagram page, is his favourite animal rights activist. Moby says about this song: “Where is your pride is a testament to Benjamin and an honour to his legacy.” READSouleymane Bachir Diagne is a philosopher at Columbia University, a marvellous thinker and philosopher of translation. I have recently come across his work, and now I am listening to every single interview he did (those on French public radio are excellent) and catching up with reading his rich oeuvre. I am currently reading De langue à langue. L’hospitalité de la traduction (From Tongue to Tongue. Hospitality in Translation). I cannot find an English translation of this book. He is also the author of an autobiography, Le fagot de ma mémoire, which I cannot wait to dive into. For those of you who don’t read in the French language, Bachir Diagne has also many books in English, and I invite you to explore his work.

    21 min

  2. 05/20/2024

    26 - Hidrellez

    Welcome to issue twenty-six of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Subscribe: www.theattentionspan.com/subscribe Support: When I launched the attention span newsletter, thoughtful friends convinced me to start a Patreon page. I received support for a full year from some of you, which has allowed me to pay for logistical costs. I stopped the Patreon page to simplify supporting ways to one-off payments starting at 2,50 EUR. Do support if you can and want to: via PAYPAL.EPISODE 26 SHOW NOTES I remember those moments that have remained engraved in my memory, listening to the music of Goran Bregović, and particularly this song, Ederlezi from the soundtrack of the film The Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica, covered by Sezen Aksu in 1997, a decade after Bregović performed it as Đurđevdan with his band Bjelo Dugme (see playlist on Spotify). On Sunday 5 May 2024, writer Percival Everett was a guest of Private Passions on BBC3 radio. His novel The Trees was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022; an earlier book, Erasure, was adapted into the recent Oscar-winning film American Fiction (which I wrote about in issue 22 of this newsletter). His latest novel, James, is a re-telling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved friend Jim. In this episode of Private Passions, Everett shares his favourite music; jazz and blues, along with Dvorak, Schoenberg, Gustav Holst’s The Planets....

    12 min

  3. 04/24/2024

    25 - To Die a Thousand Times

    Welcome to issue twenty-five of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Subscribe: www.theattentionspan.com/subscribe EPISODE 25 SHOW NOTES Rachel Handler who has interviewed the director for Vulture, describes the film as “a call to arms from director Agnieszka Holland and co-writers Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko and Maciej Pisuk — a viscerally disturbing, two-and-a-half-hour warning about the international encroachment of fascism and mass dehumanization, captured even as tragedy continues to unfold.” In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Holland said that despite the backlash “[…] people are going to see the film. People are discussing it, people are crying, expressing very deep emotions. That is what I wanted to do, to touch the hearts and conscience of my co-citizens.” Youssoupha’s song Mourir Mille Fois My piece: Documenting our Humanity. LISTENPodcast: Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography. In this episode of the Thames & Hudson Podcast, Wendy Ewald, Susan Meiselas and Laura Wexler – three of the co-authors of Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography – delve behind the scenes of their book in which they offer up an alternative understanding of photography as something that is inherently collaborative, and explore the countless complex relationships between photographer, subject, viewer, camera and more. It’s a fascinating conversation. I have always wondered how the subjects of the so many photographs we admire and celebrate were feeling about finding their image in a museum, a book, in someone’s private collection… So many questions the book explores and this podcast touches on. WATCHThe Hell of Auschwitz - Maus by Art Spiegelman by Pauline Horovitz on Arte TV. I read Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer winning graphic novel more than a decade ago. It truly is one of those works that makes you grasp the power of comics as a narrative medium. I was therefore very curious what the filmmaker wanted to capture with this documentary. I found the way she puts herself in the story very interesting, and the detailed way in which she takes the viewer through Spiegelman’s process, spoke to me. It is a really well made documentary that highlights how Spiegelman has revolutionised the medium of comics. READSince I mention the documentary about Maus by Art Spiegelman, let me tell you more about the story. This comic book depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It represents Jews as mice, Germans as cats and Poles as pigs. It is a mix of memoir, autobiography, history, fiction, no matter what one wants to call it, it is an essential read for anyone who is interested in how personal narratives set in complex historical contexts, can be told through comics. In 1992 it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize.

    15 min

  4. 04/10/2024

    24 - Walk in my Words

    Welcome to issue twenty-four of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Subscribe: www.theattentionspan.com/subscribe EPISODE 24 SHOW NOTES WATCHI have rewatched Angels in America (2003) years after I had first seen it (you know, when HBO was leading the way in groundbreaking storytelling on TV). Tony Kushner’s writing didn’t age, the story spoke to me even more today than it had at the time. The miniseries (6 episodes) is based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning 1991 play of the same name (also by Kushner). Set in 1985, the story revolves around six New Yorkers whose lives intersect. At its core is Prior Walter, a gay man living with AIDS who is visited by an angel (played by the wonderful Emma Thompson). Angels in America beautifully explores political and cultural themes, from the Reagan era politics to the AIDS epidemic, touching on social and political issues we are still deep in today. The last episode even sees the main characters having a conversation on occupation and Palestine (and Kushner hasn’t changed his tune). LISTENI am that person who walks through life creating soundtracks for my everyday life, so I love original soundtracks for film and TV shows. Diving back in Angels in America also means going back to the soundtrack, with Thomas Newman’s brilliant score. I love Newman’s music, he also did Shawshank Redemption (yeah, I’m on that team, don’t judge), as well as Revolutionary Road (another favourite soundtracks of mine). READCOMPLAINT! by Sara Ahmed is the book I needed to read at this moment in my life. It offered me much solace and acted, not only as a confirmation of how much work we still need to do to fight against heteronormative and white supremacist norms and structures, but also brought me hope because we’re not alone, and we have tools, definitions, and the heart to go beyond labels or experiences that may have been inflicted on us.

    13 min

  5. 03/27/2024

    23 - On Holding Space

    Welcome to issue twenty-three of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. You can support my work via patreon 🧡 Subscribe: www.theattentionspan.com/subscribe EPISODE 23 SHOW NOTES In 2021, I had interviewed writer and academic Aminata Cairo for Rekto Verso magazine. My piece was published in Dutch in Aleksandra Hrkic’s translation. I thought about Aminata Cairo’s work on Holding Space a lot these past two weeks, so I thought I would share the never published original English version with you all. WATCHThis is a great interview with filmmaker Ava DuVernay on how film changes the way we see the world, part of the TEDx talk series. And I am not abandoning the idea of writing about her latest film Origin. I went to see it again, and I am still reflecting on it. I want to write a reflection worthy of all the care and love DuVernay has put it, so I am taking my time. LISTENThe following episode of Free Thinking on BBC radio 3 was very interesting: Free speech, censorship and modern China, especially the part about Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang. I cannot wait to read this book when it will be out in May. READWork Won’t Love you Back by Sarah Jaffe is a book exploring how devotion to our jobs keeps us exploited, exhausted, and alone. Don’t expect a handbook on how to separate your emotions from your job, this is not a self-help book, it’s much better and deeper. It is very well researched, offering a historical, sociological, cultural and political perspective on definitions of love related to work. It’s an excellent criticism of our capitalist systems that have been using the idea of “love” to exploit us in the workspace.

    24 min

  6. 03/13/2024

    22- The Mirror of our Lives

    Welcome to issue twenty-two of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. You can support my work via patreon 🧡EPISODE 22 SHOW NOTES The films of Kryzsztof Kieślowski on MUBI. I have watched The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar winning film, at my local cinema. The film’s title refers to the term used by the Nazis to describe the immediate area around the concentration camp. As described in this Guardian interview with the director, “Played by German actors Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller, the couple are the embodiment of the Jewish writer Primo Levi’s insistence that it is ordinary people, rather than monsters, who are capable of committing atrocity.”WATCHI really enjoyed watching American Fiction by Cord Jefferson, a film adapted from the book Erasure by Percival Everett (2001). It tells the story of Monk, a frustrated novelist who's fed up with the establishment that profits from Black entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, he writes a book as expected of the White literary and media establishment to be “Black” under a pen name, and what unfolds is the whole hypocrisy of the system and the literary industry. Many moments I could imagine a version of this film set in the Netherlands, Belgium or France. Someday I may even write that version myself! LISTENThe soundtrack of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s film La double vie de Véronique by composer Zbigniew Preisner. It is mesmerising. It will move you even more if you watch the film too. READVanessa Springora’s memoir Le Consentement (which has been translated to English by Natasha Lehrer as Consent) is a very difficult read. I have dived into it (as well as in other literature about sexual abuse on minors) since actor Judith Godrèche has filed complaints against filmmaker Benoit Jacquot for rape with constraint, and another French auteur cinema favourite, Jacques Doillon for rape with violence. I wanted to write in a future issue of the newsletter about sexual abuse and abuse of power in art, cinema, literature, as it’s been bothering me for years (from Woody Allen to Roman Polanski and many more) but I haven’t found the strength yet to dive deep. It may come. In any case, Springora’s memoir is disturbing in the reality it describes and how the system has allowed all the abuse to happen, but it’s also an incredible reclaiming of one’s agency and I applaud the author for fighting back her abuser with the weapon he’s been using all his life to legitimise his predatory behaviour: literature.

    10 min

  7. 02/28/2024

    21 - Dreaming of a Home for the Free Word

    Welcome to issue twenty-one of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. You can support my work via patreon 🧡EPISODE 21 SHOW NOTESFree Word closing: literaryconsultancy.co.uk/2021/04/free-word-announces-closure-tlc-moves-to-hybrid-working/Being a Writer community of TLC: literaryconsultancy.co.uk/being-a-writer/English PEN: www.englishpen.orgArvon: arvon.orgPoetry Translation Centre: www.poetrytranslation.orgMeeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (directed by Terence Dixon) on MUBI: mubi.com/en/nl/films/meeting-the-man-james-baldwin-in-parisTranslation and Race by Corine Tachtiris www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003180166/translation-race-corine-tachtiristhe afikra podcast: www.afikra.com/podcast

    16 min

  8. 02/14/2024

    20- From the Streets to the Page: On Multilingualism and Hospitality in Literary Translation

    Welcome to issue twenty of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. You can support my work via patreon 🧡EPISODE 20 SHOW NOTESREFERENCES Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982). Aminata Cairo, Holding Space: A Storytelling Approach to Trampling Diversity and Inclusion (2021). Hélène Cixous et Cécile Wajsbrot, une autobiographie allemande(Christian Bourgois éditeur, 2016). Teju Cole, Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 2021). Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendell, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984). Édouard Glissant, L’imaginaire des langues (Entretiens avec Lise Gauvin 1991–2009), (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2010). Chris Keulemans, Gastvrijheid, (Amsterdam: Jurgen Maas Uitgeverij, 2021). Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, 7 December 1993.

    17 min
See All (28)

About

Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil (she/they) is a multilingual writer, artist, literary translator based in Amsterdam. She publishes a newsletter and podcast titled The Attention Span, where they can take the time to reflect, to analyse and to imagine our societies through writing, art and culture. Whether you are a writer, a translator, a reader, a professional working in the arts, culture or literature, or someone who likes to take the time to reflect on the world we live in through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature, ‘The Attention Span’ is the space for you. So do subscribe! Go to theattentionspan.com/subscribe to join the newsletter, or simply find The Attention Span on your favourite pod catcher. You can also support Canan’s work via www.patreon.com/theattentionspan

Information

  • Creator
    Canan (Ja’anan) Marasligil
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2024
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Unless otherwise stated, all content created and published in this podcast is authored by Canan (Ja’anan) Marasligil, established as a freelancer under Studio Zeytin (registered at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce KvK: 73770450), based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
  • Show Website
    the attention span