My Living Room as a Public Sphere
An Iranian experiment in free society
“I’m not certain that the ideal society should be religious. I start from the premise that the ideal society should be secular.” So spoke documentary filmmaker, Mehran Tamadon, in a conversation with the four conservative mullahs, advocates of the Islamic republic, he invited to be part of his new movie ...
The Dream of Women’s Emancipation
Animal Spirits
Women in the Rulings of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights
Moving beyond the single story
After a long battle with the mainstream of human rights discourse and institutions dating from at least the era of the League of Nations, feminists organized in a transnational movement [1] have succeeded in placing women’s issues at the centre of human rights debates.
Here I want to take a step back ...
An Anniversary of Crimea Takeover: Borders and the Crime of their Violation
A year ago, Russia occupied Crimea, staged a disputed referendum about seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia, and annexed it to its territory. In postwar history, the annexation of a part of a sovereign country's territory to the aggressor state has no precedent. There have been several occupations, invasions and ...
Affective Labor in the Post-Fordist Transformation
Germany’s Awkward Farewell to Günter Grass
Can good poetry also be a good politics? I am paraphrasing a question that I have heard Jeff Goldfarb asking on several occasions. Günter Grass, German novelist, poet, sculptor, and a Nobel Prize laureate, delivered both -- the finest literature and daring political insights. With his departure, Germany and the ...
Cognitive Mapping
Laruelle’s Kinky Syntax
The Disappearance of the Liberal Illusion
Three recent decisions from the Israeli Supreme Court
Four months ago, I was present at a conference organized by The Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The conference focused on a report that the Association had published, entitled “One Government, Two Legal Systems,” which studied the apartheid methods that Israel applies in the ...