SPOTLIGHT

  • The African Union and its Reactions to Three Types of Coups in Guinea, Mali, and Chad

    Three different types of coups have occurred in Guinea, Mali, and Chad, and they are worth identifying. These are opportunistic, oligarchic, and sultanistic coups. Opportunistic in the case of Guinea, oligarchic in the case of Mali, and sultanistic in the case of Chad. All of the coups were staged as military takeovers of civilian government, but in different contexts.  

  • Bard vs. Bullet

    Good news for a change—but bad news, as usual. According to the Associated Press (July 31), there’s a shortage of ammunition all over the United States, as major manufacturers are unable to keep up with high demand. Only the military is unaffected, since the Army supplies its own ammo, for all branches of the armed forces.

  • The Critical Importance of Wildlife Conservation

    Many scientists believe that we are in the midst of a 6th mass extinction, one that is almost entirely caused by human involvement. While this is a grim reality, it also means that we have the power to do something to stop the future loss of species. From purchasing a shark bracelet that helps fund marine conservation to eco-friendly shoes, there are endless ways to make conscious purchases that make a big difference. 

  • The Abortion Wars

    The Texas law is an abomination, not just because it violates women's rights, but because the egregious manner in which it does so also betrays any who might be troubled by abortion on truly moral grounds. It is a law rooted in culture war politics, not moral concerns, and its effect will be the promotion of a more sinister and corrupt society, not a more morally sensitive one. And yet it is just such moral sensitivity that we require if we are going to caringly address abortion and other morally relevant issues.

  • African American Existentialism: DuBois, Locke, Thurman, and King

    Race today is often presented as a social construct. But social constructions, as Black people know all too well, can create real existential crises. Philosophers of the Black Experience writing during the Modern Era of the African American Freedom Struggle (1896-1975) engaged questions of freedom, existence, and the struggles associated with the experiences of being Black in America.

  • Surviving the City of Arts

    How do we teach humanities to STEM students in a time of increasing suspicion about the goodness of technology?

THEORY

Thoughts Within the Coronising Siege

By |May 12th, 2020|1 Comment

This is the 2nd pandemia of global capitalocene (1st was/is the temperature and sea-level rise, but it's so slow banks don't worry).  So we’re in kinda „medical pre-fascism,“ for the rulers a very welcome excuse for the future: only police and pass-holders on the streets, no unruly demonstrators, approaching total control

PRACTICE

Our New Civil War

By |September 18th, 2020|1 Comment

What distinguishes Trump from every other president in my lifetime is that he appears to be a supremacist, not only in action, but in ideological commitment. It is just in this sense that Trump is anti-American.

Defund the police?

By |August 13th, 2020|0 Comments

Protesters keep using the slogan “Defund the Police,” but I don’t think the slogan means what many protestors claim it means—and I’m deeply troubled and even suspicious that those protestors continue to use the slogan because there are also many protestors who do think it means what it clearly says it means.

Lebanon: This Time It’s Different.

By |August 13th, 2020|0 Comments

Historically, Lebanese politicians have comprised and struck bargains across the sectarian divide to form governments. A political class in Lebanon has existed for decades and typically “new” governments have simply been re-configured versions of the old. However, recent protests, rooted in the 2015 garbage crisis, have taken on a different flavor. The protests of old were very often driven by sectarianism, but these newer protests appear to be driven by a unified public. On the heels of a global pandemic and a massive economic crisis in which many Lebanese struggle to have enough food, the port blast may very well be the proverbial last straw for the public.

JUSTICE

Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties

By |August 16th, 2016|6 Comments

Muhammad Ali was more than just king of the ring. He was a political figure with enormous influence. Too many people today, perhaps especially young people, are unaware of this important fact. It is a fact worth recalling. The social conflicts informing the revolutionary turbulence of the 1960s are still with us, and in some ways are more extreme now than they were then.

ARTS & LETTERS