What We're Readings
Featured Article
Impartiality and Objectivity
In Between Past and Future, Hannah Arendt explores the critical distinction between impartiality and objectivity, emphasizing the necessity of understanding multiple perspectives in both art and politics. Through her essays, Arendt reflects on how the dual totalitarian regimes and the Holocaust necessitate a reevaluation of our moral and political traditions, urging us to cultivate the practice of thinking without the constraints of historical norms. This book serves as an essential guide for navigating contemporary political discourse, advocating for a return to impartial judgment as a means of fostering a shared world amidst diversity.09-22-2024
What We're Readings
University of Toronto Censured
The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has censured the University of Toronto for canceling the hiring of a professor because of complaints by a University Trustee about the professor’s politics.05-06-2021
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.”04-22-2021
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.04-15-2021
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.04-01-2021
Arendt, Camus, and Comte
David Langwallner writes about Hannah Arendt as a public intellectual and highlights her connections with Albert Camus and their joint worry about the rising power of scientists in public life.04-01-2021
Without Vision, the People Perish
Elisa Gonzalez writes about Marilynne Robinson’s novels with a particular attention to her account of race, the Church, and the vision of what America might be.04-01-2021
Anti-Black Antiracists
John McWhorter is publishing excerpts from his new book, The Elect: The Threat to A Progressive America from Anti-Black Antiracists. In the fifth excerpt, he argues that antiracism is a religion that harms black Americans.03-25-2021
Is a Civil War Coming?
Elliot Ackerman asks if the polarization in the United States presages a new Civil War. "A recent poll conducted by Ipsos showed that only 12 percent of Americans consider the country “unified” and concluded that “political party identification has become the chief dividing line in this new American ethos.”03-18-2021
Perpetual War Cultivates Militarism
Brad Evans interviews Vincent Brown about violence, white privilege, and police brutality. Brown begins with an account of the violent foundation of American life.03-13-2021