Michael Weinman, Author at Public Seminar

Constitutional Patriotism and America’s Shame

November 14, 2016 • by Michael Weinman

America: we need to talk. And we are not going to like what we hear. But avoiding hearing what we don’t like to hear is what has brought us to a place where nearly the entire political and media establishment agree is a low point in the moral and intellectual ...

Constitutional Patriotism and America’s Shame

Feature

A Weberian Lesson Concerning the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary

April 15, 2016 • by Michael Weinman

Much virtual ink has been spilled in the past two weeks over the increasingly bitter “tone” to the debate between the two candidates for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, and more especially between their advocates, emissaries and supporters. Here on Public Seminar, Jeffrey Goldfarb has weighed ...

A Weberian Lesson Concerning the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary

Education

Perspectivalism Without Relativism: A basis for Susan Henking’s “educated hope” for liberal education

March 2, 2016 • by Michael Weinman

Last month, Susan Henking, President of Shimer College (my alma mater) wrote for O.O.P.S. what she called “my educated hope for Shimer and for liberal education,” a hope “rooted in a criticism of the ways we have been commodified, [forced to] meet our budgets… empowered and disempowered as institutions and ...

Education

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in an Early Modern Science Course?

Reflections on continuous contingent foundations for liberal education and liberal democracies

January 19, 2016 • by Michael Weinman

In my final post of the old year , I promised that my next post would defend my claim that “however much I believe the liberals’ heart is in the right place, I believe the critiques of liberal universalism both within the academy and without hit home in some real ...

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in an Early Modern Science Course?

Education

Butler’s “ethic of vulnerability” and redefining “liberal” in the “liberal arts”

December 16, 2015 • by Michael Weinman

In today’s post I want to do two things. First, I hope to continue my attempt to investigate the connection between engaging in the practice of liberal arts education in an expressly “diverse” intellectual and intercultural context and theorizing the relevant sense of recognizing another who is “like us.” Second, ...

Education

When Is Someone “Like Us”?

December 7, 2015 • by Michael Weinman

When the victims of the Paris attacks received massive public sympathy on a global scale, many people pointed out that such an outpouring was disproportionate, and even stunk of Eurocentrism. After all, other attacks had occurred in recent months, other lives were lost, and far less attention was paid. There ...

Power and Crisis

Moral Sentiment and Moral Judgment after the Paris Attacks

On the problem of selective solidarity

November 18, 2015 • by Michael Weinman

Ever since the dust began to clear after what President Hollande rightfully called "the horror" of Friday night, my media consumption -- yes, especially my Facebook feed (constantly refreshed with reflections from Public Seminar) ...

...