Articles

An Office of Denaturalization is a Dangerous Step

By Roger Berkowitz
The  Department of  Justice announced last week the creation of a special section to denaturalize American citizens. The sovereign right of a nation to control who is nationalized or denationalized is unchallenged, and yet in practice the rise of mass denationalization first emerged in Europe in the 1930s.

Loneliness and the Nuclear Family

By Roger Berkowitz
What are the great problems facing the country? If one follows the political theatrics these days, it is whether we should have Medicare for all or Medicare for all who want it. Add to that questions about how much to tax billionaires and the middle class, how many immigrants should be welcomed, and National Disclosure Agreements. Arguably, however...

What We Are Reading:
Creating Viewpoint Diversity 

By Samantha Hill
Musa Al-Gharbi reflects upon his work for the Heterodox Academy and the difficult work of creating genuine viewpoint diversity on college campuses...

Organize Don’t Mobilize

By Roger Berkowitz
The 2020 election may well come down to three states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If President Trump wins just one of these states—he won all three by slim margins in 2016—it is likely he will be reelected. If a Democrat flips all three, there is a good chance that they will be the next President.

What We Are Reading:
Against Empathy

By Samantha Hill
Paul Bloom discusses the difference between cognitive and emotional empathy, and why he’s against using empathy as a guide for being in the world. 

Courage to Be Student Essay: On Nicole Dennis-Benn

By Isis Pinheiro
On Monday, February 10th, Jamaican novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn visited Bard College as the first speaker of the 2020 Courage to Be lecture series. She is a public health researcher turned professional writer and the author of the acclaimed novel Patsy. Her work deals with issues of homophobia, sexualization of girls, socioeconomic disparities, and themes of identity and love. 

What We Are Reading: Academic Freedom and Twitter

By Roger Berkowitz
Adam Steinbaugh reports on the decision by Babson College to fire an adjunct faculty member after complaints were made about social media posts he wrote in response to President Trump’s tweet threatening to bomb Iranian cultural sites. After Asheen Phansey suggested that Iran might offer a list of American cultural institutions to attack, Babson was criticized widely for supporting an anti-American professor who was calling for attacks on American cultural sites.

What We Are Reading: Nonviolence 
 

By Samantha Hill
Masha Gessen interviews Judith Butler for The New Yorker.  Butler’s new book, “The Force of Nonviolence” tackles the way we can imagine “an entirely new way for humans to live together in the world.” In the interview, Butler addresses questions of nonviolence, equality, and the liberal notion of individualism.

A Politics of Meaning

By Roger Berkowitz
In an essay on Arendt in this year’s Critique 13/13 Seminars, Seyla Benhabib asks whether it makes sense to read Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition as a core text in the somewhat arcane world of critical theory.  For Benahabib, Arendt’s text is “critical” insofar as it “shares with the Marxist tradition a critique of the alienation of the homo faber from the products...