Call to Participate in the International Women’s Strike on March 8th

Open Petition

Dear colleagues, In its first weeks, the Trump administration has followed through on its promise to aggressively target vulnerable populations through a series of illegal and inhumane executive orders.  Many of the policies of the Trump administration have harmed members within our own university community.  As members of this community, we ...
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McCarthyism

An American Analog to Trumpism

Without denying the relevance of the European experience, however, I want to suggest there is plenty in U.S. history powerfully instructive to the present moment. When the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed in 1798, and again following World Wars I and II during the first and second “Red Scares,” ...
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Trump and his Recent Denunciation of Anti-semitism

11 Theses

2. This is a very bad thing for Jewish-Americans, for minorities of all kinds, for all citizens who care about the rights of individuals and the importance of constitutional democracy, and for all human beings who care about human dignity and respect. 3. It is imperative that this anti-semitism is denounced ...
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Responding to Neo-Fascism (Part 2)

Full-bodied Democratic Power Six Theses for a Robust Resistance to Trumpian Fascism

Whereas much grassroots democratic politics often resembles Nietzsche’s sarcastic image of a huge mouth on a feeble stick of a body with atrophied senses, we need to cultivate a robust, full-bodied politics. Radical politics is often represented today by a bullhorn in the hands of a protester speaking truth ...
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The False Premises of Alt-Right Ideology

Academics must understand how the Alt-Right sees the world if we are to resist it

Adequately understanding the alt-right ideology requires us to see how it is different from other strains of racism, how it is different from political frameworks that it might seem superficially similar to (e.g. Marxist critique) and how it understands and responds to the left’s own narratives, frameworks, and discourse. Once ...
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Peddling Acquiescence as Unity

Exploring the complexity of empathic communication in the face of Trump

Alongside the article’s publication, the Times’s political podcast The Run Up announced a three-episode series called “Dialogues” in which pairs of family and friends -- one Trump voter and one Clinton voter per episode -- would pose these questions to one another. Perhaps not unsurprisingly the dialogues, resting on necessarily ...
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Understanding Neo-Fascism (Part 1)

Trump-shock and Resonant Violence Five theses for Comprehending Trumpian Fascism

The new regime bears important similarities to classic fascism, meaning that it buzzes with rapid intensifications of white supremacist nationalism, dismissive attacks on reason, autocratic leadership, deepening entwinements of state and capital, disenfranchisement, the attack on liberal and representative democratic institutions and, increasingly, right-wing populist violence. However, this new fascism ...
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Keep the Doors of American Universities Wide Open

A Letter from the President of the New School

With one signature, President Trump threatened the fundamental premise upon which America’s excellent universities, and indeed our country, has been built. The recent Executive Order banning entry into the United States by refugees, immigrants and citizens from seven predominantly Muslim nations is antithetical to the core values of inclusion and ...
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Citizens of the Cognisphere

As we prepare a new generation of students for the computational regime (Brueck, 2016) we need to make room for cultural examination and critical reflection—not just to transcribe a liberal arts agenda in "an obligation to develop their abilities to think and live," (Deresiewicz, 2015) —but also to re-instill astonishment and ...
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GTMO Is Open for Business

Be Afraid!

On February 13, Republican Senators begged Trump in a joint letter to issue the order. Exceeding even its harsh terms, their letter called for the suspension of GTMO’s Periodic Review Boards (PRBs). First convened in 2013, the PRBs have cleared for release dozens of prisoners hitherto destined for indefinite detention ...
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Trump’s Gothic Populism

Comparing Trump’s Inauguration Speech to Obama’s

Unsurprisingly, Trump hit all the main notes of contemporary radical populism: the Manichean, moralistic distinction between the pure people and the corrupt elite; the anti-pluralist idealization of a common, unified people; and the commitment to a populist leader who directly incarnates the general will: Trump expresses himself as the pure, ...
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Harvard’s Microcosm of Labor Inequality

Organizing the Ivory Tower

Universities are a microcosm of the increasing inequality we see across society. Every year, adjunct faculty, post-doctoral researchers, student workers, clerical and technical staff, dining service employees, security workers, and janitorial staff are bearing the burden of jobs that impose more work and provide less security. In response to the ...
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