Democracy Archives - Page 8 of 56

Activism

The New Urgency of LGBTQ+ Pride in Paris

A celebration or a rebellion?

October 7, 2024 • by Marko Vuorinen

"We are transfeminists, radicals, and afroqueers,” marchers shouted. “Get used to it!" Their call echoed through a crowd of 28,000, gathered in the heart of Paris to advocate for the rights of gender and sexual minorities. Summer is Pride season around the world, and Paris is no exception. The main event ...

The New Urgency of LGBTQ+ Pride in Paris

Europe & Central Asia

The Sword Is Mightier Than the Pen

An interview with Margaret Atwood

October 2, 2024 • by Margaret Atwood and Aaron James Wendland

This interview was conducted as part of a benefit conference for the Ukrainian academy that Aaron James Wendland organized in March 2023 at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The benefit conference was designed to provide financial support for academic and civic ...

Europe & Central Asia

To Cancel or Not to Cancel? Questioning the Russian Idea

October 1, 2024 • by George Pattison

Nine months after the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin delivered a speech in which he argued that although Western leaders always claim to be the champions of freedom, Western liberalism was now engaged in the complete suppression of anything that contradicted its view of what was socially and culturally desirable. ...

To Cancel or Not to Cancel? Questioning the Russian Idea

Education

Academic Dialogue Against the Background of War

There are currently no conversation partners for Western academics within the Russian academy

October 1, 2024 • by Nataliia Viatkina

A recent issue of Aeon featured an article entitled “The Missing Conversation,” with the subtitle “To the detriment of the public, scientists and historians don’t engage with one another. They must begin a new dialogue.” The article amounts to a conversation between the famous scientists and historians of science, professors Lorraine Daston and ...

Academic Dialogue Against the Background of War

Europe & Central Asia

Thinking in Dark Times: Life, Death, and Social Solidarity

Living through war can transform how we engage with philosophy

September 30, 2024 • by Aaron James Wendland and Volodymyr Yermolenko

This lecture was delivered as part of a benefit conference for the Ukrainian academy that Aaron James Wendland organized in March 2023 at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The benefit conference was designed to provide financial support for academic and civic ...

Thinking in Dark Times: Life, Death, and Social Solidarity

Europe & Central Asia

Thinking About Freedom in Wartime Ukraine

The philosophical implications of Zelensky’s decision to stay in Kyiv

September 30, 2024 • by Timothy Snyder

This lecture was delivered as part of a benefit conference for the Ukrainian academy that Aaron James Wendland organized in March 2023 at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The benefit conference was designed to provide financial support for academic and civic ...

Thinking About Freedom in Wartime Ukraine

Europe & Central Asia

To Know Your Enemy’s Face

Russian studies and language programs face a decline in the US, despite stable demand for expertise in the field

September 27, 2024 • by Anastasia Shteinert

Knowing your enemy as the key to victory is centuries-old wisdom. Washington seemed to embrace it during the Cold War, investing significant resources in the development of Soviet studies. In recent years, however, the situation has changed. Researchers and university professors are concerned about the deepening crisis in Russian studies ...

Education

Ukrainian Studies Struggle Against Imperial Heritage

Preserving identity

September 26, 2024 • by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed

In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the international community rallied behind Ukrainians’ determination to defend their country. Vital financial aid was accompanied by efforts to better understand a nation that did not surrender in the face of the Russian military forces that overwhelmingly surpassed the ...

Ukrainian Studies Struggle Against Imperial Heritage

Film & Performing Arts

Notes on Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest

Mass dehumanization on the other side of the garden wall

September 25, 2024 • by Anonymous

When viewed against the backdrop of what Palestine’s Permanent Observer to the UN has called “the most thoroughly documented genocide in history,” Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s recent film about the genocide of the Jews, takes on a deeper meaning: “The reason I made this film,” Glazer said shortly after ...

Notes on Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest

Middle East & North Africa

On The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy’s journey into his country’s heart of darkness

September 23, 2024 • by Benoit Challand

Gideon Levy, an award-winning journalist for the liberal Israeli English-language daily Haaretz, has been covering the Palestinian occupied territories since the late 1980s. His column, “Twilight Zone,” published during the Oslo process, was famously unsettling to many Israelis because he established, week after week, that the celebrated peace process was ...

On The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe

North America

How Moderate Republicans Went Extinct

Reconsidering Nelson Rockefeller and his legacy

September 18, 2024 • by Henry Tonks

At the Aspen Ideas Climate Summit in spring 2022—one of those gatherings of the well-informed and the well-to-do so beloved by American politicians—Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, urged Republicans to “take back” their party from Donald Trump. “This country,” the veteran Democratic leader opined, “needs a ...

Democracy

Venezuelans Battle a Crumbling Democracy and a Stolen Election

How a revolution ignites

September 17, 2024 • by Alexandra Panzarelli

Highly charged protests continue to erupt in Venezuela following President Nicolás Maduro's blatantly forged electoral results at the end of July. The US and 10 Latin American states have rejected Maduro's unsubstantiated vote certification. But rather than face mounting pressure from the opposition to release evidence of the votes behind ...