Letter From the Editor
I remember sitting in grade school history class reading about my country. At the time the United States was a country of fiction to me, one that only existed in textbooks as I was too young to actually understand how it all worked, and too young to believe I was actually apart of it. I remember memorizing the pledge of allegiance, but not understanding the words as I spoke them every morning. Today, like most Sundays, I bought the New York Times and a coffee and began reading about how President Obama avoided "a looming shutdown of the United States government". I can't imagine reading about my government shutting down back then, or even thinking such was a possibility. But, I suppose we live in different times now.
When I set out to create this issue, which happens to be my first thematic issue of Nomenus Quarterly, I wanted to shift the focus away from pure beauty and place it on an abridged history of an idea. As an American, I often find myself questioning the integrity of my country, and how it exists in the world now as well as in the history books I grew up reading. This issue is an attempt to arrange a selection of contemporary art that holds a mirror up to the face of the United States today, and to its recent past.
Erik Madigan Heck