From the Editors Archives - Page 147 of 171

Feature

Summer of Our American Discontent

New Hearts and Racial Divides

December 30, 2016 • by Louis Colombo

On July 12, 2016, in the midst of another American summer wracked by racial unrest, police brutality, protest, and violence, President Obama addressed the nation from Dallas, Texas, during a memorial service for five police officers slain in the line of duty and urged Americans to “reject despair” and to ...

Feature

The 1@1

National Minute of Silence for Women’s Equality

December 29, 2016 • by Alyson Palmer

On 11/9, I felt physical pain. I'd lived through Reagan, and Bush ...and Bush... so, it wasn't a Republican win that squeezed my stomach with icy fingers. It was the vertiginous plunge of the elevator just as the doors were about to slide open onto full equality, the hurtling backward ...

Education

“Post-Truth,” And “Social Research”

Oxford English Dictionary’s word of 2016

December 28, 2016 • by Lydia Nobbs

What happens when facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief? This phenomenon is known as “post-truth,” a term that was named word of 2016 by the Oxford English Dictionary. When false news is seen as credible and the metrics of prediction have ...

Feature

Cuba Mourns Fidel, Maybe

Reactions on the ground in the aftermath of the leader’s death

December 27, 2016 • by Hira Nabi

For nine days there was no alcohol sold on the island. Cuba is not a dry country, but it became one in mourning Fidel. “There was absolutely no alcohol being sold, not even to tourists,” Jenni, a visiting student from a US college on a study abroad program told me. ...

Feature

I think… I don’t think… I really think…

The curious life of gender in the election of Donald J.Trump

December 26, 2016 • by Kate Foley

On October 24, 2016, Carol Gilligan hosted a panel discussion at The New School titled “Election Game Changer: Is Gender the Explosive issue?” With election day fast-approaching, Gilligan and her fellow panelists, Wendy Puriefoy, Janet Reitman, Esther Franke, and Ali Shames-Dawson, engaged in a lively exploration of the political landscape ...

Feature

Trump Calls Killing Addicts, “Right Approach”

Philippines President Claims Trump Endorsed His Violent Anti-drug Campaign

December 23, 2016 • by Kevin Franciotti

Donald Trump’s inviting Rodrigo Duterte to the White House adds to the growing list of victimized, marginalized groups endangered by the incoming administration. Amongst the many targets of his bigoted, xenophobic, racist, ableist, and misogynist assaults, drug addicts, too, may now find a place. The President-elect’s alleged endorsement of the brutal ...

Trump Calls Killing Addicts, “Right Approach”

Education

Utopias of the Surface

December 22, 2016 • by Will Scarlett

Nothing is really visible, not even in the noon sun’s blinding reflection on the shimmering sea. A magical time, when gods appear. -Claudio Magris, A Different Sea Almost every day, I walk a few blocks west from my apartment to the Hudson River. This is one of the few places where the ...

Feature

Was Donald Trump Elected Because He Is Laughable?

Reflections on Trump and Sovereignty

December 21, 2016 • by Dimitris Vardoulakis

Flying over the Pacific to return to Sydney after six weeks in the US, conversations with my friends in New York in the aftermath of the November 8 election run through my head. There was a strong sense of bafflement, even incomprehension, at Donald Trump’s victory. It was mystifying that ...

Was Donald Trump Elected Because He Is Laughable?

Feature

The Lady in the Van (2015)

Movie Review

December 20, 2016 • by Margaret Kim Peterson

“One seldom was able to do her a good turn without some thoughts of strangulation.” Mary (or is it Margaret?) Shepherd was a pianist. And then she was a nun. And then… well, it’s not clear just what happened next. But by the time we meet her, in Alan Bennett’s ...

Feature

Borders and the Politics of Mourning

A Response in a Post-Trump World

December 19, 2016 • by Anne McNevin

It seems an understatement to emphasize the timeliness of the recent edition of The New School’s journal Social Research on “Borders and Politics of Mourning,” edited by Alexandra Délano Alonso and Benjamin Nienass. The title takes on a whole new meaning in the aftermath of the US election. The politics ...

Feature

The Right’s Walls and the Left’s Commons

Critical reflections on the long – running clash between left and right

December 16, 2016 • by Todd Gitlin

In a knife-edge election, many are the causes that tip the balance between victory and defeat. Politics is, as Branch Rickey memorably said of baseball, “a game of inches.” Minor changes in a campaign scenario produce major differences. Surely Donald Trump’s victory derived in no small part from his appeal ...

The Right’s Walls and the Left’s Commons

Feature

Democratic Deficits and the Electoral College

Why the possible alternatives to an outmoded relic of slavery are worse than the relic itself

December 16, 2016 • by Julie Novkov

The electoral college is an outmoded relic of slavery that should be removed from the constitution, not modestly revised, and certainly not politically activated. The civics explanation for the college -- that it provided a stopgap to prevent popular passions from running amok and that it helped to ensure that ...