Feature Archives - Page 28 of 150

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“Fault Lines,” Dry January, and the Sex Recession

Past Present Episode 161

January 8, 2019 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Niki, Neil, and Natalia welcome Princeton historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian Zelizer to discuss their new book, Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974, followed by a discussion of “Dry January,” and new findings that young people are having less sex. Here are some links ...

“Fault Lines,” Dry January, and the Sex Recession

Feature

The Biggest Dog You’ve Ever Seen

Interview with National Book Award Winner Sigrid Nunez

January 8, 2019 • by Sigrid Nunez and Evangeline Riddiford Graham

In November 2018, the prestigious National Book Award for fiction went to The Friend, a novel about grief, writing, friendship, and a Great Dane named Apollo. The author of The Friend (Riverhead Books, 2018) is Sigrid Nunez, a long-time faculty member of the New School Creative Writing Program. Nunez has published seven other books, ...

Blue Monday

On Calls to Impeach the Motherfucker

The Democratic Party needs a “dialectic” between the words of Tlaib and the words of Pelosi

January 7, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

“We’re gonna impeach the motherfucker.” Thus declared Rashida Tlaib last Thursday night while speaking at a MoveOn event just hours after being sworn in as a new Congresswoman. A shitstorm of controversy ensued. Across the political spectrum Tlaib was denounced for her “vulgarity.” The New York Times headline reporting on her statement neatly summed up the response of ...

Feature

Crossing Borders Is My Life

Doing and teaching literary translation in the age of customs and border protection

January 7, 2019 • by Val Vinokur

I grew up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, in a country afraid its citizens would leave and wary of foreigners somehow contaminating or stealing something from the homeland. As we were preparing to leave Moscow forever (we thought) in 1978, my grandmother's youngest brother, whom she had ...

Feature

The Weekly Standard, Sheryl Sandberg, and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”

Past Present Episode 160

January 6, 2019 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Natalia, Niki, and Neil discuss the closing of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, changing public perceptions of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and the controversy over the 1944 Christmas classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: After twenty-three years, the ...

The Weekly Standard, Sheryl Sandberg, and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”

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Older Men’s Bargaining Power Hit by 36% Decrease in Job Tenure

2.9% unemployment rate for workers age 55 and older in December

January 5, 2019 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today reported a 2.9% unemployment rate for workers age 55 and older in December, which represents no change from November. Despite the low headline unemployment rate, changes in job tenure over the last 30 years have reduced older workers' bargaining power, especially older men. In 1987, the ...

Older Men’s Bargaining Power Hit by 36% Decrease in Job Tenure

Feature

A Public Seminar Happy New Year?

Reflections between hope and despair, with musical accompaniment

January 4, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I wanted to declare, without hesitation: Happy New Year! But I couldn’t, as New Year’s celebrations passed. I fear a very unhappy one, with more of what we have been experiencing. Democracy, free speech, academic freedom, human rights, and the movements for class, gender, sexual, and racial justice are all ...

Feature

With the 116th Congress the Party Gap has Become a Party Chasm

The Democratic Party is doing something right by women

January 4, 2019 • by Jo Freeman

On January 3rd 132 women took the oath of office to be a Member of Congress. Included in this number are 25 Senators, 102 Representatives and 5 delegates. This is the largest number of women who have ever served in Congress at one time. While many have greatly lauded this great leap upward ...

With the 116th Congress the Party Gap has Become a Party Chasm

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What We Know About Parsons School of Design’s Namesake

The story behind Frank Alvah Parsons, the man who made art and design accessible to New Yorkers

January 4, 2019 • by Molly Rottman

A hundred and fifty miles from Parsons’ campus in New York City is a small town in the foothills of the Pioneer Valley called Chester. With a population of 1,380, Chester’s only claim to fame was emery, a mineral used in the nineteenth century for grinding metal (and later finger ...

What We Know About Parsons School of Design’s Namesake

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Overhearing in the Public Sphere

Any conversation in any public sphere is doomed to entail consequences

January 3, 2019 • by Daniel Dayan

1. Overhearing, intruding, my interview & Goffman I was once invited to speak at a conference in Sigtuna, near Uppsala, in Sweden. The conference dealt with religious sociology and a few clerics were present. One of them was a famous Danish Imam, Abu Laban. He had ignited what came to be known ...

Feature

Celebrating Gloria Steinem

We All Stand on Her Shoulders

January 2, 2019 • by Peter Dreier

Gloria Steinem, the best-known face of second wave feminism, will turn 85 in March. And while it’s a persistent temptation in our youth-obsessed America to pay more attention to the young than the old, Steinem has not been forgotten. In fact, a new play about Steinem, “Gloria: A Life,” opened ...

Feature

When Tribalism Trumps Originalism

The Insane Jurisprudence of the Win-at-All-Costs Republican Party

January 2, 2019 • by Sanford Schram

A Republican-appointed federal district court judge from Texas, named Reed O’Connor, issued a less than timely ruling just before Christmas stating in absolute terms that there is no question that Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act -- ACA) is nothing less than unconstitutional. In other words, the judge was firm in his decision, ...