Feature Archives - Page 91 of 150

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In Memoriam

Ashbery’s poetic cosmopolitanism

December 11, 2017 • by David Micah Greenberg

Rimbaud’s Illuminations also presents the city as object of inspiration and denigration. Take the opening of “Metropolitan” (here translated by Ashbery): From the indigo strait to the seas of Ossian, on the pink and orange sand bathed by the wine-colored sky, crystal boulevards rise up and intersect, immediately populated by poor ...

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Against Jason Brennan’s Book

A response to ‘Against Democracy’

December 11, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I will begin with a short prefatory comment about the occasion for this discussion at this particular moment in the intellectual history of the US. I will then outline four points in criticism of Brennan’s argument as presented in his book, whose title — Against Democracy — he is obliged, I submit, to own: ...

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Swing Left

Trump year 1

December 10, 2017 • by Mete Egemen

I am originally from Turkey and I became a United States citizen in 2005. Since then, I have voted in all elections, primary, odd year, midterms and general. I am active with Swing Left PA-07. You might say I am bit of a political junkie. People ask me why I got ...

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Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice?

Reflecting on Ends and Means: Thinking About Communism and Anti-Communism, Trumpism and Its Alternatives

December 8, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

These words were delivered just as I was coming of political age. I remember that they disturbed all the adults around me, who were fearful of Goldwater’s extremism. But I also remember wondering whether Goldwater had a point, even as I found no appeal in Goldwater’s partisan positions: against the ...

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A Feminist Policy Wonk’s Memoir

A short take on Hillary Clinton’s book, What Happened

December 8, 2017 • by Daisy Hernandez

We have opinions about her. We have arguments. We have history. We call her “Hillary.” It doesn’t matter if we have ever met her (I haven’t) or if we have canvassed neighborhoods for her presidential campaign (I have). We all have ideas about Hillary. And feelings. Maybe this would be ...

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Concrete Utopia

(Re)producing life in, against and beyond the open veins of capital

December 7, 2017 • by Ana Cecilia Dinerstein

Concrete utopia is a contradictory process that develops within, against and beyond the social relation of capital and its institutions. Concrete utopia is subsumed into the open veins of capital and is crisscrossed by the main contradiction of capitalist work: we live in a society where we need to work in ...

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Surviving Trump

Trump year 1

December 7, 2017 • by Arlene Stein

In my household, Donald Trump’s reign of error has ushered in a stream of daily conniptions. He did what? He said that? These days, Cynthia and I exchange gasps of horror as we read the morning paper over coffee. We’ve instituted Trump-free zones, such as the bedroom, where we have a mutual ...

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Sex in the Time of Communism

The ripple effect of the #metoo campaign

December 7, 2017 • by Maria Bucur

My first sexual experience was on a bus in Bucharest. I was 7, surrounded by a throng of people. Like many other kids who lived in the communist bloc, I had parents who worked full time, which meant that I mostly went to school alone. I also came back from ...

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Trump, Freud, and the Puzzle of Femininity

Our fear of the feminine might be the great riddle of democracy

December 6, 2017 • by Jill Gentile

But our president is the Greatest Repudiator. Not only has he sought to repudiate the Paris Climate Accord, UNESCO, women’s reproductive rights, and Obamacare; he has also demonstrated that he is obsessed with repudiating everything Obama. He practically revels in ignoring if not dismissing democratic values we take for granted: ...

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Neither Normalization Nor Alarmism

Responding to Ivan Krastev

December 6, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Krastev is surely right that the current situation is distinctive (indeed all situations are distinctive), and simplistic analogies to 1930’s fascism or 1970’s communism are misleading. He is also right that “alarmism” is mistaken (after all, when is “alarmism,” as opposed to “sounding the alarm,” ever a good thing?), and that the defense of democracy ...

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Is It Just a Cake?

History helps us understand what is at stake in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case

December 6, 2017 • by Claire Potter

Given that context, the neighborly approach would be to say: “Fine, we won’t compel you to do something you believe violates your sacred principles. But we would like to hire you to bake other cakes for us. We would like to invite you into our home for dinner and bake ...