From the Editors Archives - Page 53 of 171

Feature

Racism, Thomas Farr, and the Legacies of George H. W. Bush

Bush was no Trump, but he helped pave the way for Trump

December 5, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Late last week Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina declared that he will vote against President Trump’s nomination of Thomas Farr to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals, effectively killing the nomination in the Senate. Scott is the first African-American from South Carolina to ever serve in the ...

Racism, Thomas Farr, and the Legacies of George H. W. Bush

Feature

The New School’s Paradoxical Archive

How a school focused on the future has learned to love its past

December 5, 2018 • by Wendy Scheir

If an archives is perceived to be a site of retrograde nostalgia whose purpose is to revive conservative, old ideas, then a shadow of suspicion is cast over a university archives, too. The very idea of an archives does not align, even outwardly conflicts, with The New School’s idea of itself. It’s not ...

Feature

The Unfolding Welfare Crisis in the UK

Will a system designed for universal care become a universal catastrophe?

December 4, 2018 • by Christian Garland

Chris Gold of Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset -- one of the “test” areas in which Universal Credit is in operation -- was found to have died of natural causes. Despite suffering a stroke in 2015, Gold had lost his Employment Support Allowance after being declared “fit for work,” and then in ...

Feature

We Still Need Pronoun Go-Rounds

A response to Jen Manion

December 3, 2018 • by Dean Spade

Jen Manion’s thoughtful and provocative essay, "The Performance of Transgender Inclusion: The pronoun go-round and the new gender binary," proposes that having participants in group spaces identify their pronouns to each other causes more harm than good. I disagree. For almost two decades, I have been working to address the harm ...

Feature

Bush Without Tears

Never attempt to define a person’s legacy based on a few incidents

December 3, 2018 • by John Lawrence

The presidency of George H.W. Bush is enjoying a nostalgic portrayal following the death of “41” on November 30. His is being called “the most successful one term presidency in history,” and that description may well endure given the obvious fact that, by definition, one term presidencies have invariably ended ...

Education

The Possibilities for New Ways of Living

What students help their professors learn about teaching the Anthropocene

December 3, 2018 • by Stephanie Wakefield

1. The Anthropocene designates Earth’s departure from the stable climates of the Holocene and its entrance into a more volatile and unknown operating space as glaciers melt, seas rise, and climates change. As I see it we are living in not only the Anthropocene but more specifically, as I’ve written from ...

The Possibilities for New Ways of Living

Education

The City Shares Its New Early Childhood Education Vision

The plan proposal remains open for comments and questions

December 2, 2018 • by Kendra Hurley

On Monday, the Department of Education (DOE) released its long-anticipated white paper on the future of early education in New York City. It describes how the City envisions its merger of the City-contracted subsidized child care system, now overseen by the Administration for Children’s Services, with Pre-K-for-All and 3K-for-All under the aegis ...

The City Shares Its New Early Childhood Education Vision

Feature

Dope Peddlers at the Museum

What does a family of wealthy philanthropists have to do with a gang of drug traffickers?

December 2, 2018 • by Johan Matthew

What does a family of wealthy philanthropists have to do with a gang of drug traffickers? At first glance it seems absurd that the low-profile yet spectacularly generous Sackler family would have any connection to the egregiously violent drug gang MS-13. The Sacklers have contributed to just about every major museum in London ...

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The Way We Shop Now

How American fiction has helped decode the history of capitalism

December 1, 2018 • by Sara Georgini

Consider the salesgirl. This holiday season, as we navigate the nation’s retail theatre in stores and online, let’s think about the ideas and ideologies of the diverse Americans at work behind the counter. Hero or villain, peddler or pauper, capitalist superhero or covert anarchist: the figure of the salesman has ...

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Crossing Borders with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

A personal history of what HIAS really stands for

November 30, 2018 • by Martin O. Heisler

Shortly before his murderous rampage against Jews and migrants, Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh shooter, posted online: “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t stand by and watch my people get slaughtered.” Reading this, I was astonished and profoundly disturbed. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society -- ...

Crossing Borders with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

Feature

Why Should Data Determine Who We Are?

Steffen Mau’s “Quantified Self” explains how we can reclaim agency over our digital lives

November 30, 2018 • by Sarah Nassabieh

The Chinese government intends to create a social credit system by the year 2020. Data about the behaviour of each individual from all spheres of life shall be collected, evaluated, and transformed into a personal score. Consumption, traffic offences, activities on the internet, employment contracts, performance ratings both at school ...

Education

Hungary’s Attack on Gender Studies

A threatening online message and institutional inaction exposes the official illiberalism

November 29, 2018 • by Andrea Petö

Abby L. Ferber, in her 2017 presidential address at the meeting of Sociologists for Women in Society, analyzed the threats and harassment educators face in institutions of higher education in the United States -- quoted Malcom X: “If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out ...