From the Editors Archives - Page 39 of 170

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Emergency Powers and Trump: Lessons from Carl Schmitt

Why Trump’s executive actions might be legal yet unconstitutional

March 22, 2019 • by Benjamin Andrew Schupmann

The threat to the constitution that Donald Trump poses was apparent as soon as he entered the presidential primary race. Since his election, Trump has only confirmed that threat: he has abused emergency powers and other executive privileges to advance his private interests and illiberal, antidemocratic values. Despite incessantly broadcasting ...

Emergency Powers and Trump: Lessons from Carl Schmitt

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It’s The Real Economy, Stupid

Wealthy political pundits are living in an alternate reality

March 21, 2019 • by Neil Kraus

Bill Gates caused quite a stir when he recently tweeted a graphic produced by Our World in Data (a Gates Foundation-funded organization) indicating how much progress the world has made in combating poverty over the last two centuries. Critics rightly seized on Gates’s observation as well as the data and analysis, quickly dismantling the ...

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The African American Poet as Historian

Poets do history — just not in the way that historians conceive of it

March 21, 2019 • by Holly Genovese

What is history? Not the past, but the creation of “history,” the writing of history, the teaching of history? Is it only something someone formally trained as a historian can do, even though scholars of literature and African American studies, and high school teachers and writers engage with the past, ...

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A Wound that Needs Witnessing

Healing after Christchurch

March 20, 2019 • by Safiyah Rochelle

In the aftermath of the slaughter of worshippers in a sacred space, it is easy to be angry. The targets of rage seem endless: at callow politicians who peddle in the most basic of human emotions and sling hateful words that morph into weapons; at white supremacy ideologies whose violences ...

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“Cancel Culture,” Hobbies, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

Past Present Episode 171

March 19, 2019 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Neil, Niki, and Natalia discuss “cancel culture,” the lost art of hobbies, and the tragic Ethiopian Air crash. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Young Adult literature is the latest arena for controversies over “cancel culture.” Neil recommended Jennifer Senior’s New York Times article on the perils ...

“Cancel Culture,” Hobbies, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

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Pulwama and the Battle of Optics

Political opportunism in the escalating standoff between India and Pakistan

March 19, 2019 • by Udeepta Chakravarty

“No universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megaton bomb. It ends in the total menace which organized mankind poses to organized men...” Adorno’s caution against the possible realization of the barbaric principle of “mutually assured destruction” is not a triviality when ...

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Finding Franco’s Victims

Felipa Peinado, 89, is still searching for her murdered family

March 18, 2019 • by Anna Oakes

On a cold October morning last year, I stood in Casillas, a village in the forested hills outside of Madrid, and watched a truck methodically excavate a dirt footpath extending out from the road. A dozen people stood beside me, all of us gathered due to the efforts of one ...

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The East in You Never Leaves

We self-censored. We followed the rules. We complied.

March 16, 2019 • by Julia Sonnevend

There is a certain type of post-Soviet anxiety that manifests itself in fear of state authorities, border controls or even doormen. The memory of 1989 may have largely faded, but the feeling of being ‘eastern’ has stayed with many – not least those who have built up lives and careers ...

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The Joy of the Body: An Interview with Narcissister

The artist and performer on her new film, Narcissister Organ Player

March 15, 2019 • by Narcissister and Evangeline Riddiford Graham

Try a taste of this: a giant hot dog, as big as your body. The sausage inside wiggles enticingly, then climbs right out of its bun. Standing upright, the wiener shimmies on red high heels, tossing down feather boas of mustard and ketchup. Then the meat peels back, and a ...

The Joy of the Body: An Interview with Narcissister

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The All Too Human Behavioral Geneticists

A review of Aaron Panofsky’s Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics

March 14, 2019 • by Isaac Ariail Reed

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a social theorist of our generation, possessed of rich data and much sociological insight, must be in want of Bourdieu. In what follows, I will try to explicate why I think the ironic meaning of this statement is as true as its literal ...

The All Too Human Behavioral Geneticists

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Can Behavior Genetics Free Itself From Racial Supremacy?

An excerpt from “Misbehaving Science”

March 13, 2019 • by Aaron Panofsky

Behavior genetics has always been a breeding ground for controversies. From the “criminal chromosome” to the “gay gene,” claims about the influence of genes like these have led to often vitriolic national debates about race, class, and inequality. In Misbehaving Science, Aaron Panofsky traces the field of behavior genetics back to its ...

Can Behavior Genetics Free Itself From Racial Supremacy?

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Statues for Predators

Poland struggles with the entanglements of the Catholic Church and Solidarity

March 13, 2019 • by Maria Bucur

Less than two years ago, the Charlottesville alt-right march and various other white nationalist rallies threw into renewed spotlight the racist aspects of the politics of commemoration in the United States. Communities across the country, from Baltimore to New Orleans, began to assess more openly and more critically the value ...