American Idiot

Rethinking Anti-Intellectualism in the Age of Trump

“On my arrival in the United States I was surprised to find so much distinguished talent among the subjects, and so little among the heads of the Government.” We may fairly assume that Alexis de Tocqueville would be even more surprised if he were to visit today. For while Tocqueville ...
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American Idiot

On Trump’s Response to Charlottesville

Political Encounters and Ideological Evasions

The recent clashes involving “Unite the Right” protestors and counter-protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia, cost Heather Heyer her life. Her death and President Trump’s response to it have dominated the news of late. To recount the salient events, fighting broke out between “Unite the Right” protestors (a group of white nationalists, white ...
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On Trump’s Response to Charlottesville

The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere III

Truth, Politics and the Bifurcated Sphere of Publics

As I have been reporting on the Wroclaw seminar’s progress, in the shadow of the collapse of democracy in Poland, I have been dumbfounded by events in the U.S. since I got back from Poland. President Trump has threatened nuclear war with North Korea, disregarding all expert opinion about the appropriate ...
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The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere III

Charlottesville and White Supremacy

A statement from the Global Studies program at The New School

The Global Studies program at The New School stands in solidarity with the families, students, community members, and political organizers fighting against white supremacy in Charlottesville, across the United States, and the globe. We condemn the recent acts of racialized terror and brutal assault of a diverse coalition of anti-racist ...
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Charlottesville and White Supremacy

The Body in Space/Trauma in the Body

A Review of Roxane Gay’s ‘Hunger’

Roxane Gay’s first book-length memoir, Hunger, is about space: the space that certain bodies are allowed to occupy, and the world’s response when they are unable or unwilling to fit inside it. In tender, explosive prose, Gay writes of the systemic medical dismissal and the social and sexual ostracism that ...
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The Body in Space/Trauma in the Body

Loss Beyond Destruction

Charlottesville reveals the failures of loss

“Get out, get out,” the person screams, the space in between the bangs growing closer and closer together as the warning continued. The apartment building is on fire. My brother, my parents, and I are all home and luckily we are able to hear the warning. We gather some essential possessions ...
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Loss Beyond Destruction

White Identity and Terror in America

Thinking about the Events of Charlottesville

This is a very dangerous moment. For so long, those on the left have been criticized by the right for talking and speaking in the language of identity. And yet identity talk has typically been deployed by the left to highlight those that have been excluded, marginalized, and dominated. It ...
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White Identity and Terror in America

Charlottesville and Trump

David Duke Explains Neo-Nazi Violence to You

There is fire and fury today on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. Neo-nazis and white supremacists, some bearing guns, are violently protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee and attacking anti-racist counter-protestors. David Duke has declared that this is the fulfillment of President Trump’s vision for America. “We are determined ...
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Charlottesville and Trump

Three Values of Anger

Chapter Five from ‘Sing the Rage’ by Sonali Chakravarti

—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider Anger, like other emotions, is closely related to a cluster of affective predispositions, including resentment, sadness, and frustration. Insisting on a narrow definition of anger misses the way these emotions often overlap; conversely a broad interpretation of the emotions, writ large, lacks analytical specificity. Cutting through these ...
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Three Values of Anger

Scandals in Higher Education

Race, Class and the Struggle Over Diminishing Resources

As those of us who are college and university teachers gear up for the fall semester, our profession is briefly back in the news with a high focus on the heartbreak of college admissions. Let's start with genuine heartbreak. Last Saturday, we learned that UC Irvine had rescinded acceptances for almost 500 ...
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Scandals in Higher Education

Why Engage Public Anger

A reply to Chakravarti’s Introduction to ‘Sing the Rage’

“Sing the Rage” is a bold title for a bold book. It is no small provocation to thus entitle a book that argues for a more robust engagement with anger in public life in today’s democratic societies. The title is a further challenge for readers who recall the proem[1] to ...
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Why Engage Public Anger

Black Bachelorette, White Mask

The Patterns of Subjugation and Oppression in Reality TV

There is no more popular culture, only ways of seeing populations as nothing. -- Nina Power, Thirty-one Theses on the Problem of the Public Like many faithful members of Bachelor Nation, I have long watched my favorite television show, The Bachelorette, with a healthy dose of irony. The sheer premise -- thirty-five ...
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Black Bachelorette, White Mask