#BlackLivesMatter and #Fightfor15
Building movements for racial and economic justice
It may be that in 20 or 30 years we will look back to 2015 as the year that things really began to change in the U.S. This was the year we saw the intersection of the movement for higher wages and Black Lives Matter really begin to crystalize.
Let’s go back to 2011. On September 17, activists began occupying Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, calling attention to the growing inequality between the 99% and 1%, …
Disrupting Silences in the Philosophy Canon
Teaching 'modern' philosophy
Philosophy is suffering gender-wise (and here I bracket for the moment class, race, and sexuality) — see Sally Haslanger’s “Women in Philosophy? Do the Math” in The Stone. But the gender trouble is not simply a matter of representation in the field. The problem also entails a regretfully enduring elision in the transmission of Western thought, a continued forgetfulness of invaluable labor …
A View of Detroit’s “Beautiful Terrible Ruins”
From ruin porn to a call to action
Wayne State University art historian Dora Apel’s new book, Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline (Rutgers University Press, 2015) is the last word (at least, I hope it is) on the disreputable photographic genre known as “ruin porn.” Bringing her usual due diligence to bear, Apel digs deep, tracing the roots …
Why Spinoza?
I must begin with a confession: I am a smoker. I know that smoking is dangerous for my health, but I keep doing it. I have tried to stop a couple of times, but always failed. What most puzzles me in this troubled relationship is that, when I first began smoking, I did not like it. Some people like their first cigarettes. I hated it. I guess, as a teenager, I did it only for the sociality of it. Yet, for some reason, I kept doing it, until I got addicted. Now, I …
The Tunisian Moving Seminar
Today, January 14th, exactly five years ago, Tunisian president Zin El-Abidine Ben Ali was the first Arab dictator to be removed by the will and strength of an Arab nation, ushering in a wave of Arab rebellions. Because of the negative and destructive course taken by these revolts in Egypt, Syria and Yemen, many deem it pointless, futile or indecent to try to speak of their achievements. Nonetheless, having …
The Politics of Fear and the Republican Debates
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s racist and xenophobic stance is repugnant, of course. But exclusionary attitudes are common across the Republican Party and largely shared by its nominees. The 2016 primary debates are reflective of the GOP candidates’ minimal or non-existent capacity for what Arendt called “representative thinking,” which includes the ability to inhabit other …
I Can’t Give Everything Away: on David Bowie’s Final Song
I had heard snippets of “Lazarus”, the third song on David Bowie’s new release “Blackstar”, on the radio last week. The announcer described it as part of Bowie’s newest “jazz album”, although the strongest connection I could detect with jazz was the omnipresence of the saxophone as a lead instrument. Whether the album was “jazz” or not did not concern me all that much. I thought the song was excellent …
The Anniversary Gift: Texas opens public universities to firearms
The most striking architectural feature of the University of Texas at Austin is the tower that sits atop a hill at the center of campus. It is a twenty-seven story limestone monolith; a “toothpick” according to one detractor, more suited to the New Jersey cityscapes that inspired its architect, than to the landscaped grounds and rows of squat Italianate villas that radiate out from it. The tower is, in many respects, the focal …