Amor Mundi

An Attack on the Soul

Roger Berkowitz
In response to news that Howard University is disbanding its Classics Department, Cornell West reminds us that Frederick Douglas and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. were inspired and nurtured by the classics. West argues that the attack on the classics is an attack on the soul and symptom the moral and spiritual rot of American culture. 

Regulating Artificial Intelligence

The European Union has issued a “Proposal for a Regulation on  a European Approach for Artificial Intelligence.” Download it here. Sam Schechner and Parmy Olson write that “European officials want to limit police use of facial recognition and ban the use of certain kinds of AI systems, in one of the broadest efforts yet to regulate high-stakes applications of artificial intelligence.”

Our Epistemological Crisis

Roger Berkowitz
The crisis of truth is upon us and for many this is a phenomenon associated with Donald Trump. But Hannah Arendt diagnosed the crisis of truth in modern politics over 60 years ago. And in her essay “Truth and Politics” Arendt argues that one foundation for that crisis is the loss of a non-political standpoint from which one can speak about the world and politics.

To Think What We Are Doing

Roger Berkowitz
Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition is not about human nature. Arendt says little if anything about what it means to be human in the sense of our natural humanity. Her inquiry is premised on the fact that we humans are conditioned beings, that we are born into an already existing world. That world is made through human artifice; it also conditions us humans insofar as we must live and die in a humanly built world.

First Amendment on Campus

Kieran Ravi Bhattacharya found himself suspended and dismissed from the University of Virginia Medical School after he raised questions during a panel on microagressions. The case is now in the courts and Judge Norman K. Moon of the Western District of Virginia has allowed Bhattacharya’s freedom of speech suit to go forward. The opinion is well worth reading. 

“Faith Changes Its Object, It Does Not Die”

Roger Berkowitz
In Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville argues that the American brand of religion—strong on morality while permissive on rituals and dogma—is deeply important to liberal democracy. While democracy secures and fosters political and civil liberties, religion nurtures a “civic religion” that privileges moral consensus over dogmatism.

Special Webinar: Revitalizing Democracy: Sortition, Citizen Power, and Spaces of Freedom Part I

The crisis facing democratic regimes today is cause for serious concern; it is also an opportunity for deep reflection on questions and assumptions concerning liberal representative democracy. Instead of assuming a defensive posture and taking up arms to defend the status quo, our conference asks: how can we revitalize our democracy?

The Courage to Be Lecture Series:
Steven Zeidman

Valentina Flores '22
There are about 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States, a reality that makes the United States notorious for being the world's leader in incarceration. In recent years, however, this phenomenon—mass incarceration, has gained momentum as a matter of discussion in conversations about criminal justice.

The Classroom as Public Space

Scott Newstock turns to Shakespeare and Hannah Arendt to reflect on the loss of the classroom space over the last year.