Torture and Dignity

This lecture to the New School's General Seminar was originally published on the above date. Given the recent revelations concerning the CIA's program of torture, we are highlighting Bernstein's reflections today, Dec. 12, 2014. -J.G.

I. The Abolition of Torture

Human beings are the sorts of being who can undergo devastation: they ...

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The Binding of Isaac – Roundtable

The Binding of Isaac, Akedat Yitzhak, continues to serve as a background for discussions of religion, politics, art and philosophy. This concise Biblical narrative, only 19 verses in length, has managed to set a model for thinking about obedience and sacrifice, secularism and politics, art and philosophy—and more.

In the recording ...

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On New Political Identities

Below is an interview of Simon Critchley by founder and editor of the UK-based quarterly print magazine STIR, Jonny Gordon-Farleigh. It appears in the Autumn issue of STIR under the title "An Interview with Philosopher Simon Critchley." 

The most challenging task of recent times has been to find a common ...

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The (Sad) Story of (Banksy’s) Beaver

You may not be aware that the beaver, this unlucky, little, cute rodent, has suffered a long history of oppression and exploitation. On the American continent, the beaver, a traditional source of clothing and food for native people, became soon after the arrival of the European colonizers a main object ...

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One Thing Becoming Another

When Huizi the rationalist visited Zhuangzi to express his condolences for the recent passing of Zhuangzi’s wife, he was shocked to find the great Daoist sage sprawled on the ground happily beating out a rhythm on a tub and singing with gusto. Stop this scandal! Huizi demanded, outraged at his ...

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Nancy Fraser on Feminism and Neo-liberalism

In the last decade or so an increasing number of theorists and scholars working on gender and sexuality have started paying attention to the relation between gender, sexuality, and capitalism, and to the intersection of gender oppression, class exploitation and racism. This has been a welcome turn in the feminist ...
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What’s Left After Penis Envy?

I am teaching a course called “Feminism and Literature” at the New School that explores how literature can articulate feminist claims in the public sphere. One of the problems we discussed is whether the language we are currently using, as well as the imaginary that sustains it, are actually adapted ...

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Throwing Good Money After Bad

The growing emphasis that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is placing on funding research aimed at identifying “biological markers” associated with emotional and psychological problems, to the virtual exclusion of other forms of research relevant to treating mental health problems is deeply troubling. The reasoning underlying this type ...
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