Tag: Books and literature

Study arts and humanities because you love them (and so do employers, by the way)

Whatever their GCSE results, students should be told the whole story: understanding languages and cultures is a huge advantage in the workplace Xaymaca Awoyungbo I reflect on GCSE results day with a sense of pride tinged with sadness. Proud because this year’s cohort achieved fantastic results, given the challenges they have faced since the pandemic,… Read More Study arts and humanities because you love them (and so do employers, by the way)

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Against the Illusion of Separateness: Pablo Neruda’s Beautiful Nobel Acceptance Speech (1971)

First posted December 31, 2018 By Maria Popova “There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance…” By… Read More Against the Illusion of Separateness: Pablo Neruda’s Beautiful Nobel Acceptance Speech (1971)

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I myself am a woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling (1904-1986)

First posted October 15, 2019 In the winter of 1930, the father of Ding Ling’s child and 23 other Communist activists and writers were executed by Chiang Kai-shek. Her response was swift and irrevocable: she joined the revolutionary struggle I MYSELF AM A WOMAN: Selected Writings of Ding Ling.  Reviewed by Susan Brownmiller (1989) (Scroll… Read More I myself am a woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling (1904-1986)

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Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency

Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency by M. Todd Bennett; Reviewed by Chuck Steele Despite the centrality of the ocean research vessel Glomar Explorer to this fascinating story, this is not a book intended for an audience of environmental historians. It is, however, a first-rate account of the… Read More Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency

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Academic research on Rushdie’s literary work sabotaged by Deoband Ulema / Resist the Climate of Intimidation in Academics

First posted April 25, 2012 NB: Over the past four months, the Deoband Ulema has contributed to the climate of intolerance and religious bigotry in India. First by opposing Rushdie’s presence at the Jaipur Literature Festival, and now by sabotaging a perfectly legitimate subject for research. In the first instance they succeeded by riding on the… Read More Academic research on Rushdie’s literary work sabotaged by Deoband Ulema / Resist the Climate of Intimidation in Academics

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Hannah Arendt’s ghosts: Reflections on the disputable path from Windhoek to Auschwitz

Historians on both sides of the Atlantic are currently engaged in a controversy about the allegedly genocidal nature of western colonialism and its connections with the mass violence unleashed by Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945. The debate touches upon some of the most “sensitive” issues of twentieth-century history: the violent “dark side” of modern… Read More Hannah Arendt’s ghosts: Reflections on the disputable path from Windhoek to Auschwitz

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Burning Books and The Nazification of Literature

Heinrich Heine, arguably one of the most famous of German authors, had prophetically announced that wherever they burn books, they will one day burn humans. Pramod K. Nayar German cultural production, as is well known, in the decades leading to Nazidom set about creating a ‘national’ culture by destroying Jewish, communist, humanist and other artwork,… Read More Burning Books and The Nazification of Literature

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Life and Fiction

Readers who are parents might be forgiven for thinking that Alice Munro who blamed her abused daughter for her husband’s paedophilia was a sociopath whose condition might have a bearing on her books. (Alice Munro claimed her daughter was lying about being abused by stepfather) Mukul Kesavan A year and a half ago, while moving… Read More Life and Fiction

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After more than 350 years, the first critical edition of Hobbes’s ‘Leviathan’

First posted October 06, 2012 Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. Edited by Noel Malcolm. Oxford University Press; 2,355 pages WHEN Thomas Hobbes was maths tutor to the future English king, Charles II, in Paris in 1646, his young charge reportedly found Britain’s first great modern philosopher to be “the oddest fellow he ever met with”. That was one of… Read More After more than 350 years, the first critical edition of Hobbes’s ‘Leviathan’

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