Tag: History

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

A Dying American Empire, ‘Rotten to the Heart?’

By Alfred McCoy / TomDispatch In his novel The Autumn of the Patriarch, which is eerily evocative of our current political plight, Gabriel Garcia Marquez described how a Latin American autocrat “discovered in the course of his uncountable years that a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth, [and] became convinced… Read More A Dying American Empire, ‘Rotten to the Heart?’

Dilip

Two years after the massacre, I look back in disbelief. I, too, missed the October 8 surprise / ‘If 1948 was a war of Independence, the current war could be the one that ends Israel’

NB: I respect this writer and this film maker for speaking the truth as far as their resources allow. The term community of crime is something terrifying because it reflects the truth about the fragility of human consience; and the power that ideologies possess to pervert the conscience into its opposite; to literally create communities… Read More Two years after the massacre, I look back in disbelief. I, too, missed the October 8 surprise / ‘If 1948 was a war of Independence, the current war could be the one that ends Israel’

Dilip

Peter Beinart: ‘What Israel Is Doing in the Name of the Jewish People Is a Desecration’

Itamar Katzir From his home in New York City, Peter Beinart watched in amazement as hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets during the first “day of disruption” in August. Peter Beinart – “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning” | The Daily Show The 54-year-old Jewish American journalist and commentator… Read More Peter Beinart: ‘What Israel Is Doing in the Name of the Jewish People Is a Desecration’

Dilip