online archive
12:30PM
JUN 15 2007
Philosophy, history and more
From Political Affairs, more on Richard Rorty. Friends and other philosophers talk about Rorty, from a longer film called "American Philosopher" by Phillip McReynolds. From The New Individualist, a review of Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism by Paul Boghossian and On Truth by Harry G. Frankfurt; a review of Why Truth Matters by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom; and an interview with Stephen Hicks, author of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.
A review of A Priori Knowledge: Toward a Phenomenological Explanation by Tommaso Piazza. An excerpt from Kant and Idealism by Tom Rockmore. A review of Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913-1922 by Alasdair MacIntyre. A review of Heidegger's Topology: Being, Place, World by Jeff Malpas. A review of Levinas et l'exception du soi by Rodolphe Calin.
From The Liberal, a review of The Parallax View by Slavoj Zizek; and a review of Political Ideas in the Romantic Age by Isaiah Berlin. An excerpt from Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A Study in Political Culture by Richard Pipes. A review of Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History by Darien Shanske. A review of The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War by David Livingstone Smith. A review of Utopian Dreams: A Search for a Better Life by Tobias Jones. Adam Smith for Dummies: A review of On the Wealth of Nations by P. J. O'Rourke. A review of The Metaphysics of Capital by Nicholas Ruiz.
A review of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence by David Benatar. A review of An Argument for Mind by Jerome Kagan. A review of The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science by Daniel M. Gross. A review of In Search of Happiness: Understanding an Endangered State of Mind by John F. Schumaker. A review of The Meaning of Life by Terry Eagleton. A review of Philosophizing the Everyday: Revolutionary Praxis and the Fate of Cultural Theory by John Roberts.
12:30PM
JUN 15 2007
Religion, atheism and race
From Nexus, an essay on The Criminal History of the Papacy (and part 2 and part 3). The Vatican has called for Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International over the human rights organization's stance on abortion. Amnesty had responded by saying the Church is putting its work "in peril".
From The Humanist, an essay on how to counter religion's toxic effects; and how a California Congressman became the most honest person in politics. From Commentary, a review of God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, and more from Commonweal, and more from The New Criterion. A review of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris and a review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
From The Wittenburg Door, an interview with Jimmy Dorrell, author of Trolls & Truth: 14 Realities About Today's Church That We Don't Want to See (and part 2); an interview with Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical; an interview with Ron Hall and Denver Moore, authors of Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together; and you've got to hand it to Florida. Between various hurricanes, hanging chads, Kathleen Harris and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, times are tough all over in the Sunshine State. Take the tragic case of the Rev. Markus Bishop, a minor-league televangelist in the making in ritzy Florida Bay County.
From Forward, an interview with Mark I. Greenberg, co-editor of Jewish Roots in Southern Soil, and Mark Bauman, editor of Dixie Diaspora; and a review of Lone Stars of David: The Jews of Texas. Never mind, I'll just sit here in the dark: A brief history of the Jewish mother. From Jewcy, The End of the Jewish People: Judaism must prepare itself for a world after peoplehood. From Nextbook, The Great Brain: Pseudoscience helps Haim Watzman straddle the Sephardi-Ashkenazi divide; and Bell Curve to Bell Jar: Sander L. Gilman challenges the fetishistic fascination with Jews and intelligence.
From TNR, is race in the genes? Merlin Chowkwanyun & Justin Shubow debate (and part 2). An interview with Harriet Washington, author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. From News & Views, a review of Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man’s Land, 1619-2000 by Francis Adams and Barry Sanders; and a review of White Guilt by Shelby Steele. From The Black Commentator, a series on "getting over" racism.
12:30PM
JUN 15 2007
Global politics, economics and the environment
From Foreign Affairs, Kenneth F. Scheve (Yale) and Matthew J. Slaughter (Tufts): A New Deal for Globalization. An excerpt from Bound Together How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization by Nayan Chanda. From Cato Unbound, Daniel Drezner on The Persistent Power of the State in the Global Economy (with reaction essays). Anette Ahrnens at Lund University in Sweden shows that the Security Council can be a shortcut for great powers wishing to manipulate other countries into granting their consent.
From Perspectives on Politics, Bronwyn Leebaw (UC-Riverside): The Politics of Impartial Activism: Humanitarianism and Human Rights. An interview with Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, on the prospects for bringing the last few Serbian war criminals to justice. Can kids be war criminals? A review of A Long Way Gone: Memoir of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.
Susan Waltz (Michigan): US Policy on Small Arms Transfers: A Human Rights Perspective. Jonathan Schell on the Spirit of June 12: Twenty-five years after the largest antinuclear demonstration ever, the movement has dwindled. But the threat of mass destruction grows greater.
From RSA Journal, millions of people die each year because they cannot afford routinely available medicines. Professors Thomas Pogge and Sunil Shaunak propose a new way forward. From Women's Review of Books, an article on The Dickensian World of Micro-Finance: Grameen may not be so good for women after all.
From Financial Times, who are the villains and the victims of global capital flows? The World’s Worst Currencies: Most countries seem to have finally whipped inflation—at least for now. But not everyone is celebrating the world’s impressive economic stability. A look at the soft currencies of some of the most unstable economies on the planet.
Consumerism and its Disconnects: What connection does the rural backwater of Rosia Montana have to European integration and Global climate change? Horatio Morpurgo mines the controversy surrounding a Canadian company's plans for a small Romanian town, and finds food for thought for western eco-warriors and liberals alike. Can global warming be blamed for the shrinking glaciers of Kilimanjaro? The Kibo ice cap, a "poster child" of global climate change, is being starved of snowfall and depleted by solar radiation.
12:30PM
JUN 15 2007
Gay lit, poetry, art and design
From The Gay & Lesbian Review, a review of The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire by Shadi Bartsch; heroes in the culture wars: A review of Shameless: Sexual Dissidence in American Culture by Arlene Stein; a review of Tennessee Williams: Memoirs; “Kinsey and I thought very much alike”: An interview with Gore Vidal, author of Point to Point Navigation; proof that poetry can be about assholes: a review of The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems, 1937-1952 and Collected Poems, 1947-1997 by Allen Ginsberg, and I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg by Bill Morgan.
From The Liberal, poetry was for Bertolt Brecht something he did on the side, almost a vice, a peccadillo. He didn't want it to be his living, but was helpless to prevent it from remaining his primary expression. From The New Criterion, The Heraclitus of New Hampshire: A review of The Notebooks of Robert Frost; let's do it, let's fall in luff: A review of A Worldly Country by John Ashbery, Forty-Five by Frieda Hughes, Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong, Ooga-Booga by Frederick Seidel, and Selected Poems: Expanded Edition by Robert Lowell.
Roger Kimball on why the art world is a disaster. Art on the cutting edge? Brigitte Werneburg asks what contemporariness means in the artworld today. A review of Creators: From Chaucer and Dürer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson. From Smithsonian, a photo contest attracted thousands of photographers from 86 nations. Her are the winners. An excerpt from No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy by Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites. A review of An American Lens: Scenes from Alfred Stieglitz's New York Secession by Jay Bochner.
From Print, high-flying artist? Man of the streets? Whoever Banksy wants to be, he’s keeping it a secret for now; amateurs taking over? Don't panic—DIY design culture might just have something to teach us; infusing an old culture with a complex tangle of Western influences, Lithuania’s PetPunk is helping forge a sensibility for the New Europe; and what happens when Miami meets Japanese culture? Lots of toys, parades, and playgrounds. Behold the power of Friends With You! From Resurgence, a review of Design Like You Give a Damn by Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr.
