Cyber Pamphleteer: Imagined Stations

“artifacts” by Wes Bishop

Art by Kate Shaw when the end came we did not save everything there was barely room for us and so what we deemed us was saved what was not us was left behind and thus we learned who we really were by the mountains of archives, artifacts, and ways of being, that…
Manifestos: A Prose Poem by Wes Bishop

“Who runs the world?” I ask because I have complaints. The little man tells me the box for such things is down the hall. I stumble, clutching my manifestos. If only the masses would read these typed blueprints for utopia then the world would work, because I am a mechanic for reality! I get to…
And In That Republic by Wes Bishop

And in that republic, they built a machine, a machine of a million names, but one purpose, cruelty. Inflicting pain was a virtue of nettles on bare skin, leaving kindness’s soothing balm treason. It is why I stopped searching this world for guidance, instead pilgriming to myself to find the capitol of compassion. But…
What is the United States of America? by Wes Bishop

“Has it been like this in the past or is this something new?” my friend Pádraig asked. We were sitting in one of the coffee shops close to Purdue’s campus, and around us I could hear the familiar chatter one associates with a café that caters to college students, professors, and artsy town folks.…
Walmart World Heritage Site by Wes Bishop

In the distant future, a Walmart in Cleveland, Ohio is a World Heritage Site. It is at an excavated and preserved location where people vacation and teachers march their students to see how their ancestors lived. A reenactor, blue vested and labeled “How Can I Help You?” greets the crowds like a jovial clown. They…
Cyber Pamphleteer: Imagined Stations, A Poem by Wes Bishop

They insert their hands in my mouth, these passerby pedestrians in the in-between electric places that simultaneously exist but do not exist, (much like a deceased living cat in a physics experiment), and with errant fingers feel my tongue reading my words like braille chiseled on electric, hovering boards of keys. These strangers, bathed…
No History To Speak Of, No Place To Speak From by Wes Bishop

I often come across many authors and thinkers in my reading who argue writing their own history is an emancipatory practice. In other words, they believe that taking control of the narrative of their past is the first step in creating their own distinct identity, which allows for the development of a particular social and…
The Waiting Room by Wes Bishop

God waited for the end of the universe. God had begun existence lonely, and God would end it the same way. Scanning the universe once more, God was not surprised to find no sentient being left to talk with. At this late hour in the universe, everything had shrunk down to the size of a…
Flesh Inaugurate by Wes Bishop

The other day I was riding in the car with my friend and colleague Angela Potter, and we began discussing how popular views of health, genetics, and modern material reality shaped everyday thinking and belief. We had just come from giving papers on a panel together at the Indiana Association of Historians. The topic? The…
Where We Build Our Rebellions: Review of ‘Rogue One’ and the Political Ethics of Star Wars by Wes Bishop

By now most have seen Disney’s latest installment of Star Wars. The first of the “standalone” films, Rogue One tells the story of how the Rebel Alliance learns of the evil Empire’s plot to build a planetary destroying weapon, how they discover there is a fatal flaw in the designs of said weapon, how they…