Tag: History

How far would I have gone to get away? Mukul Kesavan remembers the 1984 violence against Sikhs

The faintest of all human passions is the love of truth: A. E. Housman (1859-1936) Protestors in Amritsar with photographs of relatives who were killed in the 1984 riots. | Narinder Nanu/AFP NB: Today is the forty-first anniversary of the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi and the beginning of the massacre of innocent Sikh residents of… Read More How far would I have gone to get away? Mukul Kesavan remembers the 1984 violence against Sikhs

Dilip

The Demise of the Two-State Solution: The Assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte

Until recently, the West has pledged in the name of a two-state model in the partitioned Israel/ Palestine. But it has been replaced by a unitary state that is decreasingly secular and democratic. In retrospect, the two-state solution died in Jerusalem on September 17, 1948. See a documentary history of Count Bernadotte Dr. Dan Steinbock… Read More The Demise of the Two-State Solution: The Assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte

Dilip

Can the Humanities Be Saved?

How are professors hired or fired? It’s based on their knowledge productivity—this is how the idea of the “knowledge worker” and “knowledge economy” emerges. This is the thing that really interests me as a philosopher: that the gold standard, the epistemic norm is expertise; it’s no longer wisdom or something broader that everyone is thought… Read More Can the Humanities Be Saved?

Dilip

Chris Hedges and Rashid Khalidi: Inside America’s Academic Gulags

Historian Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, joins host Chris Hedges to detail the dwindling academic freedom in American universities and society at large as Donald Trump’s grip on free speech tightens. Khalidi notes that while the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is an old tactic to stifle academic scrutiny of Israel,… Read More Chris Hedges and Rashid Khalidi: Inside America’s Academic Gulags

Dilip

The future of the world economy beyond globalization – or, thinking with soup

Adam Tooze: Chartbook This year marks the 80th anniversary of 1945. Given the turmoil we are living through, it is tempting to look both backwards and forwards for orientation. As one of the tailgunners at a conference last week at Columbia University commemorating the 1945 moment, I was asked to give 15 minutes of remarks… Read More The future of the world economy beyond globalization – or, thinking with soup

Dilip

Against the crime of silence: Bertrand Russell’s War Crimes in Vietnam (1967)

NB: This book changed my life. I read it when I was seventeen. Along with Palestine, Vietnam’s valiant struggle against American imperialism was the epic of our generation. I will salute the Vietnamese people till the end of my days. DS “There are few parallels with the war in Vietnam. It has lasted nearly two… Read More Against the crime of silence: Bertrand Russell’s War Crimes in Vietnam (1967)

Dilip