Cleveland’s Other Conventions at the RNC

Political conventions attract strange bedfellows. Over the weekend preceding the Republican Convention, two other conventions met to talk about issues that were almost polar opposites to those of the Republicans. Both were held in black Baptist churches. The traditional Sunday protest march was small and peaceful, organized by the Worker’s ...
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Cleveland’s Other Conventions at the RNC

What Could History Have Been?

Imagining new approaches to the humanities

“What could history have been?” The question asks how events might have turned out otherwise, if only X had happened instead of Y. What if JFK hadn’t been assassinated? What if Hitler had? The official term for this kind of what-if thinking is “counterfactual history,” and it covers anything from ...

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What Could History Have Been?

Walking with Disaster

In a summer filled with news of the election in the United States, global terrorism, and Brexit, the swift resignation on July 24th of Nepal’s Prime Minister, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, hardly made the headlines. The only two news sources reporting on the event outside of Asia -- Al Jazeera ...

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Walking with Disaster

Credential Chaos and Confusion at the RNC

"I'm not a member of an organized party. I'm a Democrat." If Will Rogers had said this today he would be describing the Republican convention in Cleveland, or at least the preconvention meetings. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans hold their Committee meetings the week before the actual convention. There, important decisions ...
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Credential Chaos and Confusion at the RNC

Does Donald Trump Speak?

"I am your voice!" booms Donald Trump at the climax of his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. “Speech is something different from voice,” writes Aristotle in the Politics. “Voice” (phone) is possessed by both humans and animals, enabling us to communicate basic desires, most especially pleasure and pain. “Speech ...
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Does Donald Trump Speak?