From the Editors Archives - Page 53 of 170

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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

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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 ...

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What Will it Take to Save the Children of Yemen?

A march of backpacks against bombs

November 29, 2018 • by Jeremy Varon

I sifted through the children’s backpacks laid at the Isaiah Wall, across from the United Nations, looking for one labeled with the name of an 11 year-old boy. That’s the age of my son, and carrying it would help me feel closer to the lives we were mourning. I found ...

What Will it Take to Save the Children of Yemen?

Feature

How An Anti-LGBT Agenda Helped Secure Bolsonaro’s Election Victory

What does the election of a right-wing president mean for Brazilian democracy?

November 29, 2018 • by Gustavo Gomes da Costa Santos

This October, Brazilians went to the polls to choose a new president in the most polarized election since the end of military rule in 1985. In a highly fragmented election between 13 candidates, Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), a right-wing retired captain known for his homophobic, racist ...

How An Anti-LGBT Agenda Helped Secure Bolsonaro’s Election Victory

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Nazis in Squirrel Hill and Slonim

On how remembering the past has taken on renewed relevance

November 28, 2018 • by Ezra Mehlman

Consistent with the aftermath of most national tragedies, the reductive takes have come fast and furious. Political narratives have focused on the emboldening of the alt right’s violent fringe; religious arguments have pointed to the omnipresence of anti-Semitism, even in areas where Jews feel most comfortable; regulatory discourse has predictably ...

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European Union Strikes Back at Populism

By renouncing the Law and Justice party, Poland could return to the EU fold

November 28, 2018 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has finally taken steps to comply with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) decree ordering it to reverse some of the judicial “reforms” that took effect in July. Under the offending legislation, the PiS had tried to force out disfavored Supreme Court justices ...

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The Performance of Transgender Inclusion

The pronoun go-round and the new gender binary

November 27, 2018 • by Jen Manion

The first time someone asked me my pronoun was about a decade ago at a meeting of directors of LGBTQ centers from colleges and universities in the Northeast. Sitting around a table for our first session, we were invited to share our names, pronouns, and the school we represented. I ...

Blue Monday

Cindy Hyde-Smith, or Mississippi God Damn!

Why the history of white supremacy matters for the last Senate election of 2018

November 26, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

On Tuesday November 27 -- tomorrow -- voters in Mississippi will go to the polls to choose their next U.S. Senator in a runoff election pitting incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, a far-right Republican and Trump supporter, against Mike Espy, a moderate Democrat who served as Secretary of Agriculture in the Clinton ...

Cindy Hyde-Smith, or Mississippi God Damn!

Feature

Celebrating Human Rights

The 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

November 26, 2018 • by Yvonne M. Vissing

Human rights are under attack – not just in the U.S. but worldwide. We see rights violations as white supremacists attack synagogues and send bombs to people whose political positions they wish to silence. We see them as the government continues to separate children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. We see them in racially-provoked police-public ...