Essays Archive - Page 30 of 131

A Permanent Scar

COVID-19’s impact on young people’s futures

January 12, 2022 • by William Hayward

Almost two years after the onset of the pandemic, young people in Europe are reflecting on the impact it has had on their lives and questioning what it will mean for their future prospects. Will the lives of European youth be precarious for years to come?...

Democracy

Turkey’s Final Exam on Freedom

Boğaziçi University fights the authoritarian regime

January 12, 2022 • by Berna Turam

In September 2010, several years before serving as the prime minister of Turkey (2014–16), Ahmet Davutoğlu visited Boston. At that time, he was Turkey’s minister of foreign affairs and a member of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP). Upon his arrival, he invited a small ...

Past Present

The History of Rest and Relaxation

Past Present Podcast, Episode 308

January 10, 2022 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: As boundaries between work and home have become blurred during the pandemic, Americans have been thinking more deliberately about rest and relaxation. Neil drew on Judith Shulevitz’ New York Times piece about “bringing back the Sabbath” and this Atlantic review ...

Corporations

Let the People Decide What Counts as Public Goods

Why government spending should be defined by our democratic process, not by market forces

January 7, 2022 • by Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian

Public health is a public good, but the Trump administration handed it over to corporations. Shocking as this was, the Trump administration’s stance was simply an extension of what it had been doing since it came into office, and what politicians of all stripes have been doing for some fifty ...

Let the People Decide What Counts as Public Goods

Interviews

Why Privatization Is Worse Than You Know

An argument for more, and better, government

January 7, 2022 • by Donald Cohen and Claire Potter

Many people think privatization only means contracting for a prison or selling off a water system, but my definition is broader: private control of, and power over, public goods. By public goods, I mean things that we all depend on, essential services. So that includes prisons, but it also includes ...

Why Privatization Is Worse Than You Know

Podcast

What Weber and Foucault Get Wrong about Institutions: An Interview with Steven Klein about the Welfare State

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 10

January 7, 2022 • by Luke Mergner and Pete Sinnott

Unproductive Labor · What Weber Gets Wrong about Institutions: An Interview with Steven Klein about the Welfare State

What Weber and Foucault Get Wrong about Institutions: An Interview with Steven Klein about the Welfare State

North America

Everything Associated with January 6 Is a Performance

Televised government hearings are political theater: make Americans watch by assembling a star-studded cast

January 6, 2022 • by Peter Nohrnberg

January 6 was broadcast on live TV, bringing the performativity of Trump partisans to many Americans who had never experienced their theatrical quality. The costumes, the flags, the signage, and the face-paint compelled and stunned many viewers....

Everything Associated with January 6 Is a Performance

Prisons and Police

When Children Commit Atrocities

Crimes that tear at our hearts are also opportunities to forgive

January 5, 2022 • by Harold Pollack

A member of my own family was beaten to death by a high school student. That boy is now a man. He walks the streets today. I believe justice has been served....

Literature

Libertie

In Brooklyn in 1860, a daughter watches her mother bring a patient back from the dead, in this excerpt from Kaitlyn Greenidge’s second novel

December 15, 2021 • by Kaitlyn Greenidge

I saw my mother raise a man from the dead. “It still didn’t help him much, my love,” she told me. But I saw her do it all the same. That’s how I knew she was magic....

Interviews

How Much of History Is a Haunting? An Interview with Kaitlyn Greenidge

The author shares the process behind her new novel, Libertie, in a conversation with Mira Jacob

December 15, 2021 • by Kaitlyn Greenidge and Mira Jacob

Upon the publication of Libertie, novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge chatted with Mira Jacob about ghost stories, historical fiction, and craft....

How Much of History Is a Haunting? An Interview with Kaitlyn Greenidge

Literature

The Best Books I Read in 2021

And why I liked them

December 15, 2021 • by Claire Potter

It’s the most wonderful time of the year—buying books for other people that you want to read yourself! And on that note, here are the best ones I read last year. All links are to IndieBound to gently nudge you to buy from independent bookstores. Fiction It’s a tie between Douglas Stuart’s ...

Sex & Gender

Burning the Witch

There have been over 20,000 victims of accusations of witchcraft and related practices over the last decade. What can be done to help ensure more cases of sorcery accusation end in peace and reconciliation?

December 8, 2021 • by Miranda Forsyth

By the time his father died in his childhood home in Papua New Guinea, Father Benedict (not his real name) had been a Jesuit priest for decades. News of the death travelled from the Carterets—a chain of beautiful coral atolls—to Bougainville, one of the main islands, where Father Benedict lives ...

Essays

A Permanent Scar

COVID-19’s impact on young people’s futures

Turkey’s Final Exam on Freedom

Boğaziçi University fights the authoritarian regime

The History of Rest and Relaxation

Past Present Podcast, Episode 308

Let the People Decide What Counts as Public Goods

Why government spending should be defined by our democratic process, not by market forces

Why Privatization Is Worse Than You Know

An argument for more, and better, government

What Weber and Foucault Get Wrong about Institutions: An Interview with Steven Klein about the Welfare State

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 10

Everything Associated with January 6 Is a Performance

Televised government hearings are political theater: make Americans watch by assembling a star-studded cast

When Children Commit Atrocities

Crimes that tear at our hearts are also opportunities to forgive

Libertie

In Brooklyn in 1860, a daughter watches her mother bring a patient back from the dead, in this excerpt from Kaitlyn Greenidge’s second novel

How Much of History Is a Haunting? An Interview with Kaitlyn Greenidge

The author shares the process behind her new novel, Libertie, in a conversation with Mira Jacob

The Best Books I Read in 2021

And why I liked them

Burning the Witch

There have been over 20,000 victims of accusations of witchcraft and related practices over the last decade. What can be done to help ensure more cases of sorcery accusation end in peace and reconciliation?

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