The Parthenon as a Mediator between Greek Mathematics and Liberal Education

An excerpt from Michael Weinman and Geoff Lehman’s latest book

We propose here to pursue a method of speculative reconstruction to detail what can be learned about the “state of the art” in the early development of “liberal education” in fifth-century Greece. One needs to be cautious in speaking about such a development at such a time, which predates ...
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The Parthenon as a Mediator between Greek Mathematics and Liberal Education

Populism Through Uprooted Truths

The resiliency of Erdogan and the AKP, Part II

In part one of this paper, I elaborated the conditions for Erdoğan’s and the Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s successes in Turkey. I adopted Arendt’s discussion of the degradation of factual truth into opinion in modern societies and defined post-truth politics as based on a floating political space where the ...
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Populism Through Uprooted Truths

Populism Through Uprooted Truths

The resiliency of Erdogan and the AKP

This is an attempt to tell and explain the “success” story of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its founder Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current President of the Republic of Turkey. They came to power in 2002, following economic and political crises in the previous decade. The party and ...
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Populism Through Uprooted Truths

Ladies Swing the Band

A reflection on women who know stuff

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington The month of March is Women’s History Month in the United States. This was not always so. Indeed, the notion that women were important historical actors has been regarded as absurd for most times and ...
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Ladies Swing the Band

The Weirdness of U.S. vs. AT&T

An important debate over media mergers, or just another attack on CNN?

The first thing to recognize about the antitrust trial over AT&T’s $85 billion plan to buy Time Warner -- which begins this week at the U.S. District Court in D.C. – is how fundamentally weird the whole thing is. Few really understand why the Justice Department decided to challenge the deal ...
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The Weirdness of U.S. vs. AT&T

Stormy Weather

Trump in trouble

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington Spring approaches. But for Donald Trump, the bane of our existence, Winter is coming still. Just this past week and a half, as another Noreaster made its way across the east coast, the tempest that is the Trump ...
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Stormy Weather

Bannon at Booth

A conflict between principle and strategy?

Bannon, surely, needs no introduction, nor need we long belabor the reasons why the decision to invite him to speak at the University of Chicago proved controversial. Still, let’s note that in a letter of protest signed by over 100 members of the University of Chicago faculty, the rationale for objecting to ...
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Bannon at Booth

The Fables of Our Faubus

Jeff Sessions, man of justice

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington   Jefferson Beauregard Sessions has fallen on hard times. A celebrated Alabamian and Man of the South, he came out for Donald Trump long before any other national Republican politician, and then gave up his very ...
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The Fables of Our Faubus

Is Women’s Solidarity Possible?

To be a successful movement, feminism has had to ignore its failure with conservative women

Tomorrow is International Women's Day. Don't do housework—let men do it (that is, should you own a man: we don't at my house, so we would have to rent or borrow one.) Don't do paid work. Don't shop—except at female and minority-owned small business (should you be able to locate ...
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Is Women’s Solidarity Possible?

From Casting Director to Failed Coup

Unseating the Turkish military

The most recent period of competitive democratic politics in Turkey was bookended by two coups: those of 1980 and 2016. If the first heralded the re-organization of politics under the supervision of the military, the second instigated the transition to a civilian autocracy. The significance of the failed coup of ...
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From Casting Director to Failed Coup

Strange Fruit

An improvisation on race, hybrid identities, and the blues

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington February was Black History Month. The Republican Party apparently decided to commemorate this by organizing a reception on February 26 to honor Black Republicans. Not invited was Michael Steele, the first African-American to chair the Republican National Committee ...
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Strange Fruit

A Revolution in the Polling Booths?

The new constitutional order in Orbán’s “illiberal” Hungary

In line with these ambitions, Orbán was also quick to announce that he considered the new parliament to be “a constitutional assembly,” tasked with setting the solid foundations for the new system in the form of a new constitution, The Fundamental Law, coming into force on January 1, 2012. This ...
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A Revolution in the Polling Booths?