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James J. Conway

@jamesjconway.bsky.social

Writer, translator, reformed publisher in Berlin

126 Posts372 Follower 423 Folgt

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 6mo ago

On the Baltic with the husband, keeping things spicy with some role-playing. I‘m Caspar David Friedrich, he’s Monk by the Sea.

Man in black seen from behind at a distance on a snowy beach with dark waters and largely cloudy sky

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The sad departure of Bud Cort reminds me of this poster I saw years ago for a production of Harold and Maude in Athens. "So what if – hear me out – they were the same age?!"

Poster with Greek text showing a woman with short grey hair and glasses and a man in a purple velvet blazer who could be Jon Pertwee if you squinted

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Just had a whole-ass tree in a box turn up on my doorstep with no indication of sender and am concerned it’s some kind of underworld warning. Nice tree though.

Ficus alli tree wrapped in plastic with two bamboo supports and the tall box it came on floorboards against a light sage wall

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Czarna, 2011–2026. The best girl.

A black dog with a red harness panting with a pink tongue against bright green grass on a sunny day

Interior shot against Christmas lights of a put-upon looking older black dog with grey around its muzzle and a Santa hat

Old black dog with grey muzzle and grey-and-black harness in snowy forest, sniffing a fallen tree

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Can't remember ever seeing the Spree this frozen. No one venturing out on it, thankfully; there is a limit to even the Berliner's folly.

Under a very grey sky, the frozen River Spree in Berlin with a layer of snow, looking toward the ornate red-brick towers of the Oberbaumbrücke, behind it office blocks.

University of Toronto Press @uoftpress.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Originally published in 1894 and now available in English for the first time, Antisemitism features a range of interviews with prominent figures across Europe, revealing attitudes towards anti-Jewish hatred during a pivotal moment. Read more: bit.ly/4nAEJdU #History #JewishStudies #JewishHistory

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 9mo ago

A few days ago, this old, half-blind dog was so ill that when I took her to the vet, I wasn’t sure I would be bringing her home again. And now here she is, running through the forest on a beautiful autumn morning like a furry little Lazarus. ❤️

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Berliners! Next Wednesday (15/10) at @curiousfoxbooks.bsky.social: hear @brookfiles.bsky.social talking about his new Magnus Hirschfeld bio, The Einstein of Sex, and me re my translation of Hirschfeld’s Berlin’s Third Sex, moderated by @ajbwells.bsky.social www.curiousfoxbooks.com/events

A pink information panel headed “An evening with Magnus Hirschfeld” above the book covers for The Einstein of Sex by Daniel Brook and Berlin’s Third Sex by Magnus Hirschfeld, to the left the details “15 October/20:00/Doors 19:39/Free entry”, to the right “with Daniel Brook & James J. Conway in conversation with Alexander Wells”

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Berliner Literarische Aktion @berlitak.bsky.social · 10mo ago

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Monte Verità, looking down on Ascona and Lago Maggiore.

A mountaintop with fir trees to the left and right of the frame, in the top left a dramatic sun casting rays onto the lake below, with buildings just visible on the far shore.

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 10mo ago

You know the feeling: you’re on a train deep in the Gotthard Tunnel but you MUST have risotto rice. Swiss railways got ya covered.

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 11mo ago

#normalforbrandenburg

Red sign in a planted bed reading "Schön aber giftig/Bitte nicht berühren!" (Beautiful but poisonous/Please don't touch!)

Hedge cut in the shape of leering lantern-jawed ogre with a lawn, yellow house with shutters and partly cloudy daytime sky behind

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · 12mo ago

It was closing time at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart but this caught my eye on the way to the exit. “Magic Scene” 1740/1 by Andrea Locatelli – a macabre, occult scenario that really rewards close examination (death has not halted the hanged man’s indignities...). Fantastic custom frame, too.

Against a mulberry coloured wall, a carved silver-plated frame in portrait format topped by an owl on a stack of books within a pediment, with plants and flowers at the bottom left and right. The oil painting within the frame shows a sorcerer in a blue cloak reading from a book on the ground, tracing a sigil into the dirt within a gloomy half-ruined building, with columns holding up a vaulting ceiling, although one column is broken and topped by plant life. Around him are presumably the apparitions he has summoned. In the foreground is the skeleton of a dog, still standing, alongside broken jugs, and the skeleton of a man lying down. Above the broken column is a man hanged in a noose from a beam; a cat standing on the beam is defecating on the dead man’s head. Also hanging from the beam are monkey, and an owl watches from a perch attached to a column. Above the sorcerer a naked man is riding a flying goat through a hole in the wall toward the moonlight, behind the sorcerer we see demons, bats, a naked woman and flying snakes emerging from the pits of hell.

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

@brynstole.bsky.social‬ in The Berliner on August Endell’s The Beauty of the Metropolis (trans. me, pub. ‪@uoftpress.bsky.social‬): “a meditation on aesthetics, shot through with musings and engaged in turn-of-the-century debates” www.the-berliner.com/books/the-be...

The Beauty of the Metropolis: August Endell in praise of the unpretty city - The Berliner

August Endell’s The Beauty of the Metropolis, newly translated by James J. Conway, finds unexpected wonder in Wilhelmine Berlin’s smoke, steel, and bustle.

the-berliner.com

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Me: I’ve got a package coming today. Husband (hopefully): Is it negative books?

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

@johncoulthart.com, I saw one of these in the wild* and thought of you. * the Stefan George Museum in Bingen, which was actually pretty wild. Lots of Melchior Lechter designs.

In a curved glass case, a book in a Jugendstill design with the title MAXIMIN in gold within a gold design with thin vertical lines, a triangle and flame-like motifs against an ivory-coloured background. To the right of the book, a label: "'Maximin'/Ein Gedenkbuch/Herausgegeben von/Stefan George/Berlin 1907"

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

I may have found the most bizarre structure in Germany! Even the journey there is weird. Starting out from Mannheim, the grid city that has blocks with Battleship coordinates rather than street names, you catch a tram which crosses the Rhine to Ludwigshafen …

On a corner, two street signs in blue enamel with white text announcing this block in Mannheim as “N7”. Below it is a pedestrian traffic light on red, above it a sign saying “BÄCKER”.

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Toys at the Bauhaus Museum, Weimar, including spinning tops designed by Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, one of the original Bauhaus Weimar cohort who later emigrated to Australia and became an art teacher, where his pupils included my Dad.

Stringed puppet figure with a dark red spherical torso, bulbous pink thighs and orange upper arms, stick forearms and lower legs, black hair with eyes agog, against a pick background

Toy figures in a cabinet; a conical black-clad figure in the foreground, a spherical figure out of focus further away against a green and yellow background

Looking down on a glass-covered display case with a dusty pink base, showing three children’s spinning tops with patterned discs, one evenly divided between black and white, another with wedges of red, purple, blue, black, yellow and orange, and the third with uneven concentric circles of white, yellow, red, blue and black.

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

*Jan Brady voice* Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Nietzsche!

Selection of busts and statuettes of Friedrich Nietzsche in a museum on stepped black pedestals. Close to the viewer, a standing statuette in grey plaster, behind out of focus largely white busts.

White plaster statuette of the infirm Friedrich Nietzsche in an armchair with a blanket over his legs

Close up of Friedrich Nietzsche's death mask in grey/white plaster

Yellow rubber überduckie styled as Friedrich Nietzsche, with bushy eyebrows and moustache.

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Erfurt is for lovers

Narrow canal with railing from which hang potted flowers, beyond a restaurant overlooking the water; trees and greenery on the left side of the image with a brooding cloudy sky beyond.

Two half-timbered cream houses with sage window frames with trees either side overlooking a canal with a footbridge of stone steps and wooden boards.

Covered medieval bridge in the evening with four-storey buildings overlooking the water below

Cheese board with a heart-shaped bun and a butter pot with a pink daisy

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Receiving fresh copies of a book you’ve worked on – it never gets tired. Berlin‘s Third Sex by Magnus Hirschfeld, published by @uoftpress.bsky.social

Cardboard box open to reveal two stacks of the same book. The cover of the book has a backdrop the colour of a green carnation, with two colourised photos showing the same individual in two different exposures, one in masculine-coded clothing from the early 20th century, and one in feminine-coded clothing. On the left the individual is wearing a suit coloured mid-blue with a white starched collar and purple tie and waistcoat and a black hat. On the right the individual is wearing a pink overcoat with wide sleeves over a light-blue blouse and a purple skirt, as well as a purple broad-brimmed hat with a blue ribbon. The text at the top reads MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD/Translated and with an afterword by James J. Conway/BERLIN’S THIRD SEX

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Berlin, Saturday. Outside: meh. Inside: unfiltered sunshine from the other end of the world as Australian & New Zealand writing folk freely share their work and their thoughts in an all-day symposium. Looking forward to it!

Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · last yr.

This legend's book launch is at Lettrétage tonight >> www.the-berliner.com/books/gabrie...

Spectral analysis: Gabriel Flynn's gentrified ghouls - The Berliner

The struggling characters in the Berlin-based author's debut novel 'Poor Ghost!' are as haunted by their austere past as they are wary of Manchester's foreclosed future.

the-berliner.com

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Edwardian eccentric, defrocked priest and fantasy league pope Baron Corvo was getting up to this kind of nonsense 120 years ago strangeflowers.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/p...

Pages: Frederick Rolfe’s Reviews of Unwritten Books

These articles, written around the same time as Hadrian the Seventh (1903/04) come as a complete revelation. Where Hadrian was weighed down by Rolfe’s sense of aggrieved entitlement, these Reviews …

strangeflowers.wordpress.com

Rachael King@rachaelking70.bsky.social · last yr.

This was just posted by @tbretc.bsky.social on another platform. The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

TIL there is an online map of *every single tree in Berlin*! I see this tree on my dog walks and I always loved it but I had no idea what it was. Turns out it is a Dreidorniger Lederhülsenbaum, or honey locust (how is that not a shoegaze band?). experience.arcgis.com/experience/7...

A yellow-green tree with a pleasingly rounded crown amid other trees, including conifers, against cloudy sky.

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Next week! A whole day dedicated to Aus/NZ literature in Berlin. I'm looking forward to some great panel discussions with others who have wandered far from home. stadtsprachen.de/de/event/par...

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

It was on this day that Magnus Hirschfeld was born (1868) and died (1935), so it’s a good time to tell you my translation of his utterly groundbreaking 1904 study of sexuality and gender, “Berlin’s Third Sex”, has just been reissued by @uoftpress.bsky.social. This is also good timing because … 🧵

A book cover with a backdrop the colour of a green carnation, with two colourised photos showing an individual in two different exposures, one in masculine-coded clothing from the early 20th century, and one in feminine-coded clothing. On the left the individual is wearing a suit coloured mid-blue with a white starched collar and purple tie and waistcoat and a black hat. On the right the individual is wearing a pink overcoat with wide sleeves over a light-blue blouse and a purple skirt, as well as a purple broad-brimmed hat with a blue ribbon. The text at the top reads MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD/Translated and with an afterword by James J. Conway/BERLIN’S THIRD SEX

The cover of the book Berlin’s Third Sex by Magnus Hirschfeld with the original German title in old script enclosed by a wild cat with a garland below it in green and black, all against a pink-beige background.

Brandy Schillace @bschillace.brandyschillace.com · last yr.

LAUNCH DAY! THE INTERMEDIARIES weaves together 3 stories: A history of science and the discovery of hormones, a #history of political machinations + how Nazi weaponized hate and fear, and best of all, a history of #trans woman Dora Richter and others like her who lived lives of joy and resistance.

The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story

A Weimar Story

bookshop.org

James J. Conway @jamesjconway.bsky.social · last yr.

Artist Ilna Ewers-Wunderwald was born 150 years ago today. She provided illustrations for a number of husband Hanns Heinz Ewers's books; the scandalous pair were the ultimate bohemian duo of Wilhelmine Germany. In 2021 I was lucky enough to translate a bio of Ilna E-W www.zagava.de/shop/the-art...

Sepia photograph of a smiling dark-haired woman who appears to be sitting on a pebbly beach in a dark hat and light-coloured early 20th century dress with ruffles, showing her bloomers bare legs with dark socks underneath

Highly detailed colour drawing of an owl against a dark outdoor scene with a hint of silvery light on the horizon

Book cover featuring an illustration of a chameleon with hand-lettered text against a red field: Alraune/die Geschichte eines lebenden Wesens/Roman/von/Hanns Heinz Ewers

Highly detailed drawing of a green and red parrot with its head cocked backwards against an indeterminate brown/beige background