Betsy DeVos, Executive Orders, and Playgrounds
Past Present: Episode 68
In this week's episode, Niki, Neil, and Natalia debate Betsy DeVos and school privatization, the uses of executive orders, and the growing call for more dangerous playgrounds.
Is it “Policing Speech” to Insist on Gender-Neutral Pronouns?
A dialogue about language and identity
Peterson articulated his views in a lecture about political correctness, which he put online. The video soon went viral.
What follows is a debate about Peterson’s views, and the political, cultural, pedagogical, and linguistic issues surrounding the use of gender neutral pronouns. It takes place between two Canadian academics: Lisa McKeown ...
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Turkey Dismisses Another 786 People from Universities in Post-Coup Crackdown
An Open Letter
649 academics, along with more than a hundred administrative staff members, lost their positions at several universities. 41 of the dismissed scholars were members of the Academics for Peace initiative.
Since July 2016, more than 120,000 people have been dismissed while nearly 44,000 have been jailed and more than 80,000 detained. ...
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On The Closure of the European University St. Petersburg
A Statement from the Public Sociology Laboratory
The university is under attack. The initial request to the prosecutor’s office was submitted by Vitaliy Milonov, an odious ultra-conservative member of the Russian State Duma responsible for Russia’s anti-gay laws. This led to the university being raided by 11 various federal oversight services, ranging from the Ministry of Interior ...
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Democracy and Tyranny in the City and the Soul
A reply to Andrew Sullivan on Trump and Plato’s Republic
Sullivan does not sufficiently stress a key component of the analysis offered by Plato: that the nature of the regime that rules the city relates to the nature of the “soul” inside each individual citizen. When we bring that component back in, I think, we can see why Trump is ...
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Media and Publics in Dark Times
An OOPS course
The course objective, as I put it in the planned syllabus (responding to an administrative mandate to include such statements):
“The objective of this class follows the insights of Michael Oakeshott, the great British (conservative) philosopher, as he illuminated the problem of education and of the liberal arts. He observed that ...
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The Meaning of Michelle
First Black First Lady as Outsider Within and Agent of Change
This post is part of the Bodies, Gender, and Domination OOPS Series.
There are many aspects of the United States, of the political culture and system that I find interesting (to use a word that is telling without saying anything much). One of them is the office of the First Lady. There is ...
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The Crisis of Dynamic Stabilization and the Sociology of Resonance
An Interview with Hartmut Rosa
Hartmut Rosa: Yeah, I actually started my academic career by working on Charles Taylor, the Canadian philosopher and I did that with Axel Honnett, who at that time was at the Free University in Berlin. And this is how I got socialized into the critical theory tradition. And after that ...
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The Philosophy and Psychoanalysis of the Image
A conversation
On the occasion of Totem & Taboo, an exhibition of new paintings by Daniel Horowitz at Tillou Fine Art (running through January 21), philosopher Chiara Bottici and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster discussed the role of the image in philosophy and psychoanalysis. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of salon-style interdisciplinary ...
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25 Alternatives to Penis Envy
A Preliminary List
Penis envy is a catchy term, which is one reason it effectively made its way into popular culture. Coined in Freud’s 1925 Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes, it is widely misunderstood to mean, or used to perpetuate, the idea that those who posses a penis ...
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Warehouse of Identities
A Neoliberal Delusion
Feminism & Capitalism
Has second-wave feminism as an epochal social phenomenon unwittingly supplied key ingredients to the new spirit of capitalism named neoliberalism? This is the troubling question Nancy Fraser asks in her lecture Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History.[1] At stake is the possibility that the cultural changes jump-started by ...
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Simianization in the Film “Sing”
Glaring caricature and stereotype provides teachable moment about racial bias
The animated film “Sing,” which opened on December 21, features a lazy, tone-deaf, and hurtful character choice by writer and director Garth Jennings. Whether conscious or unconscious, Jennings’ script perpetuates systemic racism and the history of simianization and oppression of black people by depicting them as gorillas, monkeys, and apes.
“Sing” ...
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