This collection brings together diverse short pieces such as book reviews, interviews, op-eds, historical and literary-critical articles, and reports for monitoring organizations. Drawing on Matthew Feldman’s experience as literary scholar, intellectual historian, and political consultant, it follows the development of different forms of radicalism, especially far-right movements, fascist ideology, and terrorism during the “long twentieth century.” Using the examples of intellectuals such as Samuel Beckett and Albert Camus, scholars such as the Holocaust historian Detlef Mühlberger, as well as politicians such as Nick Griffin or Donald Trump, Subjects and Occasions collects texts written over more than a generation . Feldman draws connections between academic and practical knowledge, as he strives to enhance public understanding and sounding a call for civil courage needed to maintain the intrinsic value of each human life.



A collection of essays, reviews, interviews, and reports spanning over a generation, exploring radicalism—especially far-right movements, fascist ideology, and terrorism.



Lively and readable, the texts collected in these wide-ranging volumes use his archivally rich literary criticism to read modernist literature and contemporary culture alike. Feldman, unafraid to challenge lazy orthodoxies or to read even the most objectionable sources with the careful attention of a scholar, helps us to see the last century of writing and thought with a new sharpness. —Dr Alys Moody, Associate Professor of Literature, Bard College, USA



An urgent voice for our times, Feldman writes with a warm intelligence and indefatigable human spirt. This landmark collection is a work of tremendous intellectual power: it is also a necessary call to action. —Jeannette Baxter, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature, Anglia Ruskin University, UK



These writings would benefit not only the contemporary student and scholar […], but also the cultivated and curious readers with a wish of understanding the threat on democracy and justice coming from the contemporary far right in all its hues. —Dr Erika Mihálycsa, Lecturer in Language and Literature, Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania



Matthew Feldman has dedicated his career to analyzing and evaluating the radical right as a means by which to understand the resurgence of violent ideology across the world. […] Readers of these volumes will find their good fortune in having such a constant guide across some very troubling and contested terrain. —Prof. Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia



… a career’s worth of articles and reviews which […] demonstrates—if indirectly—the value, and indeed the necessity, of liberal education and the “soft” skills it fosters In a world where proponents of hate capitalize on fear and use misinformation to incite and even weaponize that fear. Feldman’s work offers not only a greater understanding of the radical right, but a playbook for countering it. —Prof. Todd Martin, Huntington University, USA



Matthew Feldman is one of the leading experts in far-right movements, both of today and in modern history. It is exciting to see that, in these two volumes, his short-form writings have been presented together for the first time. Feldman is one of the principal thinkers of our day. —Dr Helen Paynter, Director, Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, UK