All is well or so it would seem. Corey Robin reports on the latest developments in the BDS-at-Brooklyn brouhaha: Now that the mayor, the New York Times, and just about everyone else have come down hard on all the government officials and politicians who tried to force my department to withdraw its co-sponsorship of the BDS panel, theContinue reading “BDS at Brooklyn College: A Sobering ‘Success’ of Sorts”
Author Archives: Samir Chopra
Academic Freedom and Syllabus Construction: The Question of ‘Endorsement’ and ‘Balance’
My focus here on this blog, before the weekend’s traveling-imposed break, was academic freedom and on ignorant attempts to severely attenuate it at Brooklyn College. These attempts have relied on two patently dishonest, obfuscatory tactics: equating ‘sponsorship’ with ‘endorsement’ and with proposing ‘balance’ as a valid desideratum for academic content. Today, I want to offerContinue reading “Academic Freedom and Syllabus Construction: The Question of ‘Endorsement’ and ‘Balance’”
BDS, Brooklyn College, and Dismissing Dershowitz (For the Last Time)
Some more direct consideration of comments on my BDS at Brooklyn College and Dershowitz posts (here; here; and here). These are now settling into a familiar pattern of repetition of the same claims again and again and again, so rather than responding to each one of the comments directly, I will address them en masseContinue reading “BDS, Brooklyn College, and Dismissing Dershowitz (For the Last Time)”
BDS at Brooklyn College, Academic Freedom, and Dershowitz’s Censorship
Yesterday’s post on Alan Dershowitz‘s attempt to intimidate the Brooklyn College Political Science department into withdrawing its sponsorship of an event on the BDS movement, featuring Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti, generated some interesting comments. I will offer some brief responses here. Jared Michaelson worries about departments sponsoring ‘polarizing’ debate: The concern is this: aContinue reading “BDS at Brooklyn College, Academic Freedom, and Dershowitz’s Censorship”
Alan Dershowitz, Pro-Torture Plagiarist, Deigns to Lecture Us On Intellectual Honesty
Alan Dershowitz, a pro-torture plagiarist who has inexplicably managed to find employment at Harvard Law School, has written an embarrassingly incompetent Op-Ed at the Huffington Post. In it, he accuses the Department of Political Science at Brooklyn College of having an ‘Israel problem’ because it has sponsored, and thereby, according to Dershowitz, endorsed the contentsContinue reading “Alan Dershowitz, Pro-Torture Plagiarist, Deigns to Lecture Us On Intellectual Honesty”
John Donne’s Paradoxes and Problems
A short while ago, I provided, here, excerpts from Aristotle’s Problems; in particular, I quoted two questions that Aristotle raises about alcohol and sex. Then, I wanted to showcase the colorful framing of the question and the answer; the latter was made especially interesting because of the serious spirit of inquiry visible in it, oneContinue reading “John Donne’s Paradoxes and Problems”
American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, and the ‘American Gothic’ Style
The opening credits/titles for season 1 of American Horror Story are very creepy; in their visual ‘style’ they resemble those of season 3 of The Walking Dead. Let’s call this style ‘American Gothic’; what makes it work? The central motif in ‘American Gothic’–at least in the two sequences cited above–is the decay of the familiar: inevitable,Continue reading “American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, and the ‘American Gothic’ Style”
Time Again to Support Academic Freedom
This morning, I received the following email from the Brooklyn College President, Karen Gould: Dear students, faculty, and staff, Each semester, student clubs, academic departments, and other groups on our campus host events and invite speakers on a broad range of topics. At times, the issues discussed may be challenging and the points of viewContinue reading “Time Again to Support Academic Freedom”
Olympic Lifting: The Power and the Glory
Olympic weightlifting might just be the sexiest sport there is, a near-perfect blend of strength, agility, complexity and grace that if done right, brings the lifter face to face with an acute combination of the strong and the beautiful. When an Olympic lift comes off, body and mind come together. An Olympic lift–the clean andContinue reading “Olympic Lifting: The Power and the Glory”
Wanted: Moar Philosophers in Bollywood
A few days ago, a delightful oddity began making the rounds: a clip of Bertrand Russell in a Bollywood movie. The background for this clip is straightforward even if improbable: The year was 1967. Russell was by then a very frail 95-year-old man. Besides finishing work on his three-volume autobiography, Russell was devoting much ofContinue reading “Wanted: Moar Philosophers in Bollywood”
Samir Chopra 