Letter to America Letter to America
My hope: empathy, compassion, the capacity to imagine that you are not unique
Sep 12, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ariel Dorfman
Pierre Bourdieu, 1930-2002 Pierre Bourdieu, 1930-2002
The death on January 23 of the French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu came as the American chattering classes were busy checking the math in Richard Posner's Public I...
Jan 31, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Katha Pollitt
The Uncertainty Principals The Uncertainty Principals
American intellectuals love the higher gossip because it gives intellectual life here--ignored or sneered at by the public--a good name. Sensational anecdotes (Harvard's Louis Aga...
May 25, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Carlin Romano
Deconstructing the Election Deconstructing the Election
The history which bears and determines us has the form of a war rather than that of a language: relations of power, not relations of meaning. ...
Mar 8, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Win McCormack
Ce N’est Pas un Président Ce N’est Pas un Président
All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth. --John Lennon Florida's electoral mishegoss lends itself to the exploration of an issu...
Dec 7, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
Butler: Is It All Greek? Butler: Is It All Greek?
Judith Butler, who is a Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, is a troublemaker. She announced as much when sh...
Nov 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Georgette Fleischer
‘The Big Discourse’ ‘The Big Discourse’
Unusually sensitive to the fast-changing character of liberal social structures, C. Wright Mills proved impervious to the bitter ironies of reform.
Sep 25, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Summers
The New World Order (They Mean It) The New World Order (They Mean It)
The United States never held a large number of direct colonies, a fact that has prompted many political leaders to declare it the great exception to colonialism.
Jun 29, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stanley Aronowitz
Sartre’s Roads to Freedom Sartre’s Roads to Freedom
Asked where he was coming from, my friend's son replied, "From the demo against the death of Sartre." It was April 19, 1980, and the definition fitted perfectly, for Sartre's fun...
May 18, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer
Talking ‘Anarchy’ With Chomsky Talking ‘Anarchy’ With Chomsky
Noam Chomsky is a longtime political activist, writer and professor of linguistics at MIT.
Apr 5, 2000 / Books & the Arts / David Barsamian