From the Editors Archives - Page 81 of 172

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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

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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

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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 ...

The African Decolonial Thought of Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí

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The ‘Fear Index’

The autonomization of the social imaginary of finance

June 19, 2018 • by Carla Ibled

The ‘fear index’, also known as the VIX, is a financial instrument created to measure and speculate on market volatility. While financiers of old may have sought to minimize risk, the widespread use of the VIX in today’s financial landscape indicates a shift towards the competitive leveraging of volatility, with ...

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Allegories of America

American “Indians” and the British Imperial Imaginary

June 19, 2018 • by Robbie Richardson

I would like to discuss a statue in London which, like many things in London, is visible and yet generally unread, monument to a hazy or forgotten history: prominently placed in front of Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, completed in 1711, is an 1886 replica of a statue of Queen ...

Blue Monday

Bucharest Reflections on Political Corruption

Romanian Echoes of Trump

June 18, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington Everything is political. But not everything is political in the same way. In liberal democracies the law is the outcome of contests of power and political negotiations that are uneven and yet constrained by constitutional procedures; ...

Bucharest Reflections on Political Corruption

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The City and the City

A Post-Financial Counter-Imaginary for London

June 18, 2018 • by Steven Taylor

London’s status as a world financial centre is central to the current imaginary of the city as projected by PR firms, web sites such as visitlondon.com or ‘official’ promoters of tourism like London & Partners. In this representation of London, the capitalized City - the financial district or ‘Square Mile’ ...

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A Conversation on The Black Panther

Black Issues in Philosophy

June 17, 2018 • by Lewis Gordon and Gregory Doukas

Prior to the release of The Black Panther, some well-intentioned whites on social media recommended whites to wait a week before going to see the movie so black audiences could “have their moment” without white intrusion. Greg Doukas felt this stance was senseless, and contacted Lewis Gordon to hear his thoughts. Gordon ...

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An Insider’s Account of Starbucks’s Anti-bias Training

The coffee chain closed 8,000 stores for diversity training. But just how effective was it?

June 16, 2018 • by Lauren Louise Anderson

Most media outlets spun this event as Starbucks’s public response to an incident in a Philadelphia cafe in April when the manager called the police when two black businessmen asked to use a restroom before they had made a purchase. When the officers arrived and interrogated them, white bystanders defended ...

An Insider’s Account of Starbucks’s Anti-bias Training

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All the News That’s Fit to Print?

Reporting on the possible hegemony of the paranoid style of American politics

June 15, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The New York Times on May 29th, the front page headline: “Trump Endorses Shadowy Plots, Eroding Trust,” followed by a subtitle: “Theories from Fringes,” with a further subtitle: “Agencies Undermined by Claims of Deep-State and Spygate.” The article by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Maggie Haberman is smart and informative, packed with ...

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This is Your America

Why Frederick Douglass Still Matters

June 15, 2018 • by Neil Roberts

I’m worried. Very worried. But don’t mistake my worrying for pessimism or, worse, nihilism. Rather, I worry because I see a nation, with its connection to a wider world, unraveling right in front of us. Daily attempts to shatter what constitutes citizenship contribute to this entropy. There’s no immediate solution ...

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The History of Virtualizing Touch

From electricity to vibration, haptic technology is changing the relationship between touch and media

June 14, 2018 • by Allie Mularoni

From corrective lenses to virtual simulation, humans have long pursued the mediation of the senses in an effort to maximize their visual, auditory, and haptic capacities. The skin’s overlapping roles as both an organ capable of feeling its own right, as well as the structure responsible for holding all of ...