Love in the Time of Cholera

Politics in the time of impossibility of politics

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, February 18, 2026

In the Seventh Letter Plato links his decision to consecrate himself to philosophy to the wretched political conditions of the city in which he lived. After trying every way to participate in public life — he writes — he finally realised that all cities were politically corrupt (kakos politeuontai), and he felt, therefore, compelled to abandon politics and devote himself to philosophy.
Philosophy presents itself, from this perspective, as a substitute for politics. We must engage with philosophy, because — now no less than then — engaging in politics has become impossible. One must not forget this particular nexus between politics and philosophy, which makes philosophising a substitute for political action, a supply and a compensation, certainly not fully satisfying, for something we can no longer practise. What value should we then set upon this substitute, which we would not have chosen had political life been still possible? Philosophy shows here its true meaning, which is not to work out theories and opinions to propose to those who believe they can still engage in politics. Philosophy is a form of life, that allows us to live in politically unlivable conditions. Thus — just because it enables us to inhabit the uninhabitable and impolitic city — philosophical life proves to be the only possible politics in the time of impossibility of politics.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Edvard Munch, Kiss, 1897. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Words of Wisdom

As a Young Global Leader (YGL) of the World Economic Forum and a Mastercard Fellow, four-time Women’s World Chess Champion and Peking University lecturer 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) was a featured speaker at the 56th World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, January 21, 2026, with a conference entitled What Chess Teaches Humans When Machines Play Better. Photo via The Forum of Young Global Leaders.

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

The fall of the West

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, February 16, 2026

The word “Occidente” (“West”), with which we define our culture, derives etymologically from the verb cadere (to fall) and literally means: “that which is falling, that which never ceases to fall”. Also connected to this verb are the terms caso (case, chance) and casuale (chance, random). That which never ceases to fall and set (occasus is the Latin for sunset) is for this reason also prey to chance, to an unceasing randomness. It is therefore not surprising that the government of men and things takes today the form of intervention protocols, independent of certain outcomes, in a world conceived as available and calculable just because of its being random. The West exists and rules itself only in the time of its end and its constant fall and, like its God, is uninterruptedly in act of dying. But just herein lies its strength: an incessant death is properly endless; an infinite transience or randomness is meant to be just unarrestable.
A strategy that seeks to confront this perpetual decline must find in it an interstice or an interruption where the West loses its continuity and falls down once and for all. This abysmal caesura is memory. The West, as it is random and fleeting, has no memory of itself, knows no way or form where something like a memory may for a moment burst forth and grow up. It can certainly construct, as it does, archives and registers in which to chronologically arrange the events — the cases — of its history, but it lacks the capacity to truly carry out a past, to open itself to something that breaks the uniform thread of its representations. Anamnesis, memory, instead, takes the form of an interstice where the decline — chance — is halted for an instant and lets a heterogeneous and unrepresentable past appear as if it had never been. “Oh, past, thou abyss of thought!” (Schelling): only the thought that resolutely descends into this abyss can lead the West once and for all to its end.

(English translation by I, Robot)

As Tennessee Williams said, “In memory everything seems to happen to music”. Photo © 陈漫 (Chén Màn).

Oh yes, Edna, they all, and each of them, are like the hours of a clock counting and recounting the infinite time you have ahead of you

Artwork © AGtheOG123

Queen Kong

For the fourth year in a row, four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) is going to grace the WR superteam — sponsored and owned by the German tycoon Wadim Alexandrowitsch Rosenstein — with her favours in the 4th FIDE World Rapid Team Championship and 3rd FIDE World Blitz Team Championship, scheduled to take place in 香港 (Hong Kong), China, June 17–21, 2026.

侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) at last year’s World Rapid & Blitz Team Championships in London. Photo via Sina Sports.

Schachnovelle

Displaced Palestinians play chess outside their displacement tent at Nusairat, Gaza Strip. Photo: Moiz Salhi/APAImages/Shutterstock.

Long Story Short

Adijo

Roberto Cosulich – Bruno Parma
10th International Festival; Imperia, September 1968
Sicilian Defence B87

Comments in quotation marks by Grandmaster Enrico Paoli, L’Italia Scacchistica, No. 10, October 1968, p. 243, and International Master Stefano Tatai, Tatai insegna la Najdorf, Caissa Italia editore, Roma, 2008, pp. 162-163.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Qe2 b5 8. Bb3 Bb7 9. Bg5 Nbd7 10. 0-0-0. 10. Bxe6!? — “A sacrifice for risk-takers, or, as Steinitz, a staunch advocate of defence, might say, for aspiring suicides”. (Tatai).
10. ... h6. Also good is 10. ... Rc8! 11. Rhe1 h6 12. Bh4 g5 13. Bg3 Rxc3 14. bxc3 Qa5 15. f3 d5 16. exd5 Ba3+ 17. Kd2 Nxd5 18. Bxd5 Bxd5 with excellent compensation for the Exchange, Rossetto – Panno, “YMCA Chess Club” Tournament, Buenos Aires 1968.
11. Bh4 Rc8. 11. ... Qa5 12. Rhe1 g5 13. Bg3 Rc8? 14. e5! Rxc3 15. exf6 Rxb3 16. Nxe6! fxe6 17. Qxe6+ Kd8 18. Bxd6 Bxd6 19. Rxd6 Bc8 20. Red1 1–0 Mariotti – Eppinger, 11th International Festival, Imperia 1969 is an example of the dangers awaiting Black if unacquainted with the theory of the Sicilian. 11. ... g5 12. Bg3 Qb6∞ is an interesting alternative line for Black.
12. f4

12. ... Rxc3! “In such a position, Black needs to keep his cool, but, at the same time, adopt drastic measures, otherwise things will end badly. Hence the sacrifice, which we might now call ‘classic’, is the only possible and promising reaction. The game now becomes truly difficult for both contenders”. (Paoli).
“It is interesting 12. ... g5!? 13. fxg5 hxg5 14. Bxg5 Be7 even though after 15. h4! Rxc3 16. bxc3 Nxe4 17. Bxe7 Qxe7 18. Qe3 White seems to me, albeit slightly, preferable”. (Tatai).
13. bxc3 Qc7. “Now, however, 13. ... g5 can be considered better than on the previous note. To be sure, the complications after 14. e5!? e 14. Nxe6 would make anyone’s hair stand on end”. (Tatai).
14. c4 bxc4 15. Qxc4 Qxc4 16. Bxc4 Nxe4 (Δ ... ... g7-g5)
17. Be1. “Prophylactic, given the threat ... g7-g5 with complications favourable to Black”. (Paoli).
17. ... Be7 18. Rf1 d5 19. Bb3 Ndc5. “Black has only a Pawn for the Exchange, but his position is solid and the White Rooks have no outlets”. (Tatai).
20. Ba5 0-0 21. g3 Bf6 22. c3 Rc8. “It should be noted that both the White Rooks have no open files to occupy at the moment, while the Black unites are ideally placed”. (Paoli).
23. Kb2 Bc6. “The threats are gathering and White is forced to ease up, but he gives up an important and well-placed Knight”. (Paoli).
24. Nxc6 Rxc6 25. Bb4. “After the fall of the Pawn at c3 Black’s compensation will be more than abundant”. (Tatai).
25. ... Nb7 (Δ ... a6-a5)

26. f5. “The return of the Exchange is tempting but incorrect: 26. Rxd5 exd5 27. Bxd5 Rb6! (28. Bxe4 Rxb4+). On the other hand the threat of ... a6-a5 becomes pressing and since there is no defence, White throws himself into the fray”. (Paoli).
26. ... a5 27. fxe6 fxe6 28. Rxf6 gxf6 29. Ba3 Kg7? (29. ... Rxc3!−+)
“It is not well clear why Black did not take on c3 with the Rook (29. ... Nxc3? 30. Rd3 Nb5 31. Rxd5!)”. (Paoli).
30. c4 dxc4 31. Rd7+ Kg6 32. Bc2 Rb6+ 33. Kc1 f5 34. Bxe4 fxe4

35. Rd4? “If 35. Bb2 then 35. ... Nd6. Not 35. ... e3 36. Bd4 e2 37. Kd2”. (Paoli).
White goes on the wrong track. Correct was to centralise the King at once with 35. Kd2 Kf5 36. Ke3 e5 and the ending, albeit somewhat drawish, appears easier to play Black.
35. ... Kf5 36. Rxc4 Nd6 37. Rc5+ Kg4 38. Rxa5 Nc4 39. Ra7 e3 40. Ra4 Rc6 41. Kd1 Kf3 ½–½. “This is the result also given in the ChessBase online database, but it is evident that the final position is easily won for Black”. (Tatai).

K6

Apparently, before leaving England, Roberto Cosulich played (for a penultimate time?) for Middlesex in a match by telephone against a geographically limited representative of Scotland. As reported by the British Chess Magazine, Volume LXXXV, No. 6, June 1965, p. 164, Cosulich, with Black on board four, drew against H[arry?] W[ard?] Richardson:

Middlesex, as County Champion, recently challenged Scotland to a match over eight boards by telephone. Scotland accepted but were unable to bring together a team representing both the East and West, so they called their team West of Scotland. The match, played on May 1st, ended on a 3–3 score with two games unfinished; these were subsequently adjudicated by P. H. Clarke in Scotland’s favour. The detailed results are as follows (Middlesex had White on the odd-numbered boards)— (1) J. Penrose (Middlesex) 1, W. A. Fairhurst (West of Scotland) 0; (2) D. G. Wells (M.) 0, M. Fallone (S.) 1; (3) T. A. Landry (M.) 0, G. Bonner (S.) 1; (4) R. Cosulich (M.) ½, H. W. Richardson (S.) ½; (5) G. Dickson (M.) 1, K. B. McAlpine (S.) 0; (6) R. Fertoszegi (M.) ½, M. J. Freeman (S.) ½; (7) D. Wright (M.) 0, P. M. Jamieson (S.) 1; (8) D. J. Rogers (M.) 0, H. D. Holmes (S.) 1.—Middlesex 3, West of Scotland 5.

Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

Neuroteach

Don’t be sad, Edna. Without you, their script story seems like a castle without a princess

Courtesy of ongigi23

Notes from the Sidelines

Roberto Cosulich – Andrea Grinza
36th Italian Chess Championship; Pesaro, June 1975
Caro-Kann Defence B13

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. c5!?

The Gunderam Variation, a sideline favoured by Grandmaster Sergio Mariotti. White gets a Queenside Pawn majority, but to the detriment of his own development.
5. ... e6. More often Black is caught in the dilemma of having to choose between a Pawn break in the centre and a Pawn break on the Queenside: 5. ... e5!? 6. dxe5 Ne4⩱ Mariotti – Pfleger, 7th International Tournament, Olot 1972 or 5. ... b6 6. b4 e6 7. Be3 bxc5 8. dxc5 a5 9. Qa4+ Nfd7 10. Nd2 Bb7 11. Nb3 axb4 12. Qxb4 Qc7∞ Mariotti – Flesch, 4th Memorial Ivan Parčetić, Sombor 1970.
6. Nc3 b6. Very instructive is 6. ... Be7 7. Nf3 0-0 8. Bd3 b6 9. b4 a5 10. Na4 Nbd7 11. Bf4 axb4 12. c6 Nc5! 13. dxc5 bxc5 and Black’s Pawn roller more than compensates for White’s extra piece, Prins – Richter, Richard Réti Memorial, Trenčianske Teplice 1949.
7. b4 Be7. 7. ... a5 8. Na4 Nfd7 9. Bb5 would give White much more than he dared hope for.
8. Bb5+ Bd7 9. Bf4 0-0 10. Bxd7 Nfxd7 11. Nge2 a5 12. a3 axb4 13. axb4 Rxa1 14. Qxa1 bxc5 15. bxc5. 15. dxc5 gives White two passed Pawns on the Queenside, but Black counterattacks in the centre by 15. ... d4 16. Ne4 Nc6 with a volatile initiative.
15. ... Nc6. 15. ... e5 16. dxe5 d4 17. Nxd4 Nxc5 seems playable enough for Black.
16. 0-0 e5 17. dxe5 (17. Qa4 Qa8=)
17. ... Ndxe5. Also good is 17. ... Nxc5 18. Rd1 d4 19. Be3 Ne6 with equality.
18. Rd1 Bxc5 19. Rxd5 Qe7 20. Bxe5 Nxe5 21. Ne4 Nd7? The losing mistake, leaving Black’s pieces overloaded with impossible defensive tasks. Both 21. ... Ng4! and 21. ... Ng6! merit consideration, so as to reply to 22. N2g3 with 22. ... Qa7! and apparently Black’s just about holding his own.

22. N2g3! Threatens Ng3-f5.
22. ... f6. Or 22. ... g6? 23. Rxd7! winning right off.
23. Qd1! 1–0.

取消文化 (Cancel culture)

According to an official press release, four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) won’t be able to play the announced 4-game Fischerandom (Freestyle) exhibition match against Bibisara Erkhanovna Assaubayeva in Germany due to visa issues.

Odilon Redon, Silence, 1900. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Pride and Prejudice

年马年 (Year of the Horse)

A red horse plush toy produced by Happy Sister in the city of 义乌 (Yìwū) in the west of China went viral all around the country because of a manufacturing error that gave it a frown instead of a smile. Photo: 高璇 (Jade Gāo)/AFP/Getty Images.

Caesuras

Bilingualism and thought

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 22, 2026

We live in our language like blind men
walking on the edge of an abyss... This language is laden
with future catastrophes... The day will come when it will turn
against those who speak it.
Gershow Scholem

All the peoples of the earth are now hanging over the abyss of their language. Some are sinking, others are already almost sunken and, as they believe they are mastering the language, they are unknowingly being mastered by it instead. Thus the Jews, who turned their sacred language into an instrumental language of use, are like larvae in the netherworld who must drink blood in order to speak. As long as it was confined to the separate sphere of worship, it provided them with a place free from the logic of economical, technical, and political necessities, with which they measured themselves in the languages they borrowed from the peoples among whom they lived. For Chrstians, too, Latin has long offered a space in which the word was not merely a tool for information and communication, in which one could pray and not exchange messages. Bilingualism could also be internal to the language, as in classical Greece, where the language of Homer — the language of poetry — passed on an ethical heritage which could somehow direct the behaviour of those who every day spoke diverse and changable dialects.
Aa a matter of fact, our way of thinking is more or less unconsciously determined by the structure of language in which we believe we express it. In this sense — as Pasolini tirelessly repeated, but as Dante had already fully realised, distinguishing the lingua volgare from the grammatical language we learn through study — some form of bilingualism is necessary to guarantee the freedom of individuals in the face of the automatisms and conatraints that monolingualism, historically crystallised in the form of a national language, increasingly imposes on them. One cannot think in such a language, because it lacks that inexpressible distance between the thing to be expressed and the expression that alone can guarantee a free space for the thinking subject. Thought is this gap and this internal disconnection, which interrupts the inarrestable flow of language and its supposed self-sufficiency. It is a caesura in the sense that this term has in the metrics of poetry: an interruption that, suspending the rhythm of linguistic representations, lets language itself appear.
What is happening today is that mankind, entirely enslaved to a language they believe they dominate, have become so incapable of thinking that they prefer to delegate thought to an external linguistic machine, the so-called artificial intelligence. If, like the Jews according to Scholem, all peoples are now blindly walking on the abyss of a language and a reason that they have, so to say, abandoned to itself, this implies that the language from which they withdrew as conscious subjects will sooner or later take revenge, leading them to ruin. By relying on a language that is both instrument and master, and of which they have lost all awareness, they do not hear the groan, the accusation, and the threat that it, while leading them to ruin, never ceases to address them.

(English translation by I, Robot)

沈周 (Shěn Zhōu), Chanting Poems in Leisure Among Pines, ca. 1687. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

On the Air

Shards and Ashes

For the twilight of the West

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, February 2, 2026

Like in Naples on New Year’s Day, just throw everything out the window. Then, on the street, pick up some shards — shards bring good luck. The new is made from the shards of the old.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Sun Mu (선무), Untitled, 2013. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Come on, Edna, as George Eliot said, “The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision”

Artwork © by Jose-Ramiro

A Beautiful Mind

Jazz-R&B-pop artist 9m88 is the cover star of Bella’s January 2026 issue — the 500th issue since its inception in 1984. Photos: 周墨 (Zhōu Mò).

Man on a Raft

When he could, Roberto Cosulich preferred to live where there were seas and ports. And when there was no sea, he would be content with a river. And so, on his way from the Chilean sea to the Mediterranean, he docked his raft on the English shores in 1965.
With the precious help of John Saunders, we succeeded in spotting him here and there around the British docks:

9th Easter Congress — Major A
Southend-on-Sea, April 16–19, 1965

                         1  2  3  4  5  6  Pts
1 WHITBREAD, Alan W.     •  1  ½  ½  1  1   4
2 COSULICH, Roberto      0  •  1  1  1  1   4  
3 ROE, Philip L.         ½  0  •  ½  1  1   3
4 WINSER, William A.     ½  0  ½  •  1  1   3
5 HAWSON, John B.        0  0  0  0  •  1   1
6 HARDER, J. H.          0  0  0  0  0  •   0

16th Ilford Whitsun Congress — Premier Reserves A
Ilford, June 4–7, 1965
As we read on the BritBase website, “The final scores were: (1) Raymond D. Keene 3½; (2) T. Goodhill 3; (3-4) Kenneth W. Lloyd, George W. Wheeler 2½; (5) Andrew J. Whiteley 2; (6) Roberto Cosulich (Santiago, Chile) 1½”.
Even in this case none of his games are given.

Furthermore, a few references to Cosulich playing board seven for Middlesex in the 1964/65 Southern Counties Championship appear on The Monthly News Bulletin of the Southern Counties Chess Union, No. 46, Volume 7, June 1965. Cosulich, with White, first defeated John G. Brogden of Surrey, and then David G. Levens of Leicestershire, leading Middlesex to the Semi-Final match against Chesire which took place on June 12, 1965. “Some of the players on higher boards were well-known (Wade, Hartston, etc.)”, Saunders writes. “He drew his game (playing Black) with Vernon Dilworth. Middlesex qualified for the final but he did not play in that match, so perhaps he left the country at that point”.
It should be noted that the distinguished English amateur Vernon Dilworth was not only the originator of the homonymous variation in the Open Ruy López (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. 0-0 Nxe4 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3 d5 8. dxe5 Be6 9. c3 Bc5 10. Nbd2 0-0 11. Bc2 Nxf2), but also the proponent of a controversial gambit in the Nimzo-Indian (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e4).

More Than a Blind Date

• 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán), “Human–AI partnership”, TIME, Vol. 207, Nos. 1-2, January 26, 2026, p. 43.

After all, Edna, nobody never knows where he goes, nor when he’s gone, nor when he’s not come back at all

Courtesy of instagamrr

What Was Left

Pál Charles Benkö – Roberto Cosulich
11th International Tournament; Venice, November 1974
English Opening A29

Notes by Grandmaster Pál Charles Benkö, Chess Life & Review, Vol. XXX, No. 2, February 1975, pp. 81-82, and The Chess Player, No. 7/1974, 883, p. 220.

I had to play Cosulich in the last round, and whether or not he would make the IM norm depended on this game. But for me it was the last chance to improve my standing after my bad luck the previous day.
1. c4 e5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 Nc6?! (3. ... c6!?)
4. Nf3! White deliberately delays Nb1-c3, since then Black could play ... Bf8-b4 adopting a very popular line today which my opponent played in this tournament. Also, my game with Malich (Skopje 1972) followed that line, which I analyzed in CL&R.
4. ... Bc5 5. 0-0 (5. Nxe5?!)
5. ... 0-0 6. Nc3 d6 7. d3 Bd7 8. e3⩲ Bb4?!

Obviously, Black has not achieved what he wanted with his ... Bf8-c5, so he tries to get back in known lines.
9. Ne2!? Not much advantage was promised by 9. Nd5, e.g. 9. ... Nxd5 10. cxd5 Ne7 and 11. Qb3 to capture the QNP is not recommended.
Also possible was the simple 9. Bd2, but the text move is psychologically better motivated, as Black will have trouble with his KB later.
9. ... e4?! Trying to secure the position of his KB, but now the center is opened advantageously for White.
10. dxe4 Nxe4 11. Qc2 Re8 (11. ... Bf5? 12. Nh4)
12. a3 Bc5 13. b4 Bb6 14. Bb2±

14. ... Qe7?! (14. ... Nxf2!? 15. Kxf2!?)
Black already stands badly since the position of his Knight on e4 is far from secure. On 14. ... Bf5 White could answer 15. Nh4. If the Knight moves away, c4-c5 is menacing. Perhaps Black should have considered 14. ... Nxf2, although White’s two minor piece may prove stronger than Black’s Rook. Even capturing with the King is to be considered after 14. ... Nxf2.
15. Nf4! Black’s Queen does not stand well on e7 because of the weakness of his d5, which explains the following blunder. Black’s entire setup does not meet the demands of the position. Now if 15. ... Nxf2 16. Nd5 wins.
15. ... Nf6? (15. ... f5)
Now Black’s game collapses but his situation was not hopeful anyway.
16. Ng5!+−

Decisively strong, leaving Black no way out. On 16. ... g6, defending against the threats to his h7, 17. Bd5 would have been very strong, e.g. 17. ... Nxd5 18. Nxd5 Qxg5 19. Nf6+ and Black’s Queen is lost. Moreover, on 17. ... Nd8 or 17. ... Rf8 protecting the weak f7, 18. Nxg6 would win easily.
16. ... Ne5 17. Nd5 1–0. After 17. Nd5 Qd8 18. Bxe5 Rxe5 19. Nxf6+ Qxf6 20. Qxh7+ Kf8 21. Qh8+ White will be ahead the Exchange and two Pawns.