From the Editors Archives - Page 79 of 170

Blue Monday

It’s Happening Here and Now

Thoughts on the recent immigration detentions and William E. Connolly’s ‘Aspirational Fascism’

June 25, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington Donald Trump has occupied the Oval Office for the past year and a half. It has been a particularly dark time for Americans who care about freedom, human rights, and democracy. During this period a ...

Feature

A Conversation on Get Out

Black Issues in Philosophy

June 25, 2018 • by Lewis Gordon and Derefe Kimarley Chevannes

Having recently viewed Jordan Peele’s award-winning Get Out (2017), political theorist Derefe Kimarley Chevannes was prompted to discuss the film with philosopher Lewis Gordon, whose writings include discussions of race in horror films and literature. DEREFE KIMARLEY CHEVANNES: Lewis, it’s a pleasure to have this discussion with you. As I begin, ...

Feature

The Mystical Expatriates

The invention of Californian spirituality

June 24, 2018 • by Jules Evans

Back in October I went on a 10-day ayahuasca retreat in the Peruvian jungle. While there, I picked up a little novel by Christopher Isherwood called A Single Man. I don’t know why I picked up that particular book. Perhaps because it was slim, so I could finish it while at the ...

Feature

Science Fake and Real

On Enlightenment scientists and the forgotten role of imagination

June 23, 2018 • by Tita Chico

Headlines today pop with accusations that traditional sources of knowledge and even experts are biased, ideological, and unreliable. Accusations of “fake science” have become particularly commonplace. The Heritage Foundation think tank reports on the pervasiveness of fake science, laying the blame on scientists themselves. In their view, climate change isn’t caused by ...

Feature

Editors versus Algorithms

Reflecting on not so distant suffering at home and abroad in a moment of American state sponsored child abuse

June 22, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

My morning ritual includes reviewing my email messages, looking at my Facebook feed, and reading “the paper,” i.e. the print edition of The New York Times, which arrives at my doorstep sometime between 5:00 and 5:30. I try to read the paper first, though sometimes, I can’t. The paper arrives late, ...

Feature

The Pathology of Zero Tolerance

Trump administration and its treatment of immigrants

June 22, 2018 • by Sarah Sklaw

Spend enough time in Hebrew school and you may come to fear showers. This euphemism for gas chambers might haunt you. Your ears might prick up at the mention of cleanliness, as you ask what kind of “hygiene” is being promised and to whom? In detention centers in South Texas, Border Patrol ...

Feature

Trump’s State Sponsored Child Abuse

The Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy

June 21, 2018 • by John Lawrence

Having been the main congressional staff person behind the drafting and passage of a major federal child welfare law in 1980, I would have to say that Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the Jordanian diplomat who serves as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, has got it about right. Donald ...

Feature

Summer Camps, Boarding Schools and the Ideology of Family Separation in the U.S.

Family separation is part of American history

June 21, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

For many American parents gearing up for sleepaway camp season, the usual jitters are accompanied by a guilty unease: it’s hard to be anything but horrified by the profound difference between the experiences of affluent kids heading off for a summer of campfires and canoeing and those of the more than ...

Summer Camps, Boarding Schools and the Ideology of Family Separation in the U.S.

Feature

Antifa vs. Nazis: Where Has All The Violence Gone?

Despite warnings of precipitating a nascent civil war, antifascist violence has ended with the retreat of the far right

June 21, 2018 • by Mike Isaacson

Another weekend has passed with a little noted gathering of fascists away from public view and with minimal confrontation between them and antifa. On a small peninsula in Montgomery Bell Park in Tennessee, two white nationalist organizations: the American Freedom Party and the Council of Conservative Citizens, held a joint conference. Like many ...

Antifa vs. Nazis: Where Has All The Violence Gone?

Feature

The U.S. Border Crisis is Not the Holocaust

But comparing these two events tells a deeper truth about what the Trump administration is trying to accomplish

June 20, 2018 • by Claire Potter

Although I love to travel, I've never liked crossing borders. It makes me nervous, perhaps because, on one side of my family, I am the child of immigrants who were always fussing about their paperwork. Border guards, I learned at an early age, are anonymous functionaries who have outsized power ...

The U.S. Border Crisis is Not the Holocaust

Feature

U.S.-Canada Relations, Kate Spade, and A.P. History

Past Present Episode 135

June 20, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Niki, Natalia, and Neil debate the historical relationship between Canada and the United States, the legacy of the late designer Kate Spade, and the controversy over proposed changes to an Advanced Placement history course. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Relations between longtime ...

U.S.-Canada Relations, Kate Spade, and A.P. History

Feature

The African Decolonial Thought of Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí

Black Issues in Philosophy

June 20, 2018 • by Lewis Gordon

Recently, the Nigerian sociologist Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí has earned her place among many of the living in conversation with this stellar community of ancestors by virtue of her contributions to contemporary African philosophy. Readers who haven’t heard of her should take this opportunity to familiarize themselves with her work. Oyĕwùmí specializes in ...