In reviewing Jonathan Lethem‘s Dissident Gardens (“Leftists in Jeopardy“, New York Review of Books, April 2014), Michael Greenberg writes: Lethem’s impulse to display his knowingness, his “vernacular” expertise, as he calls it, his belief that “were’ surrounded by signs [and] our imperative is to ignore none of them engenders a narrative noise that drowns out theContinue reading “Cultural Associations Do Not Add Up”
Category Archives: Philosophy
Re-Reading Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’
I’m re-reading Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road in preparation for discussing it with my students next week. It has been an interesting experience. First, I am struck by how new the book seems on this second reading. I read it first a year ago, and yet, its prose seems just as pristine. There is some familiarityContinue reading “Re-Reading Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’”
Parable of the Sower: Octavia Butler’s Parable
Octavia Butler‘s Parable of the Sower, the richly symbolic and subversive.story of Lauren Olamina, a prophet in the making, one finding her voice and her people in the midst of an America whose social order is collapsing around her, grows on you. The story line is sparse: the US’ accumulated social, political and environmental dysfunctionsContinue reading “Parable of the Sower: Octavia Butler’s Parable”
Matthew Arnold On Inequality
In his 1879 essay ‘Equality,’ Matthew Arnold wrote about inequality too: What the middle class sees is that splendid piece of materialism, the aristocratic class, with a wealth and luxury utterly out of their reach, with a standard of social life and manners, the offspring of that wealth and luxury , seeming out utterly outContinue reading “Matthew Arnold On Inequality”
A Rankings Tale (That Might Rankle)
This is a story about rankings. Not of philosophy departments but of law schools. It is only tangentially relevant to the current, ongoing debate in the discipline about the Philosophical Gourmet Report. Still, some might find it of interest. So, without further ado, here goes. A half a dozen years ago, shortly after my book Decoding Liberation:Continue reading “A Rankings Tale (That Might Rankle)”
Tocqueville On Slaves, House Of Cards, And Miami
In his classic Democracy in America, in the section “Situation Of The Black Population In The United States, And Dangers With Which Its Presence Threatens The Whites”, Alexis Tocqueville wrote: [I]n a certain portion of the territory of the United States…the legal barrier which separated the two races is tending to fall away, but notContinue reading “Tocqueville On Slaves, House Of Cards, And Miami”
Waterboardin’ Brothers: The ISIS And The US
Over at The New York Times, Rukmini Callimachi writes on the inhumane treatment the ISIS meted out to those they held hostage (some of whom, like James Foley, were subsequently beheaded). Of particular interest to all Americans should be her descriptions of their torture techniques: The story of what happened in the Islamic State’s undergroundContinue reading “Waterboardin’ Brothers: The ISIS And The US”
I’m Scared, Therefore I Work
A few weeks ago, I got into an argument–offline, not online–about those two horsemen of the apocalypse that are destroying the American nation, rendering it financially insolvent, and turning the American Dream into the American Nightmare. I’m referring, of course, to unions and teacher tenure. At the heart of these fears is a very interestingContinue reading “I’m Scared, Therefore I Work”
The Renewability of Cricket
My latest post at The Cordon at ESPN-Cricinfo is titled ‘The Renewability of Cricket‘. Here is an excerpt: I want to suggest here that “we, as players and spectators” have a great deal to do with the perceived complexity of cricket. Quite simply, this is because we change over time; we do not bring, toContinue reading “The Renewability of Cricket”
Trigger Warnings For Assigned Readings?
On Monday, I wrote a brief note here on Jose Saramago‘s Blindness, commenting on its very distinctive tragicomic style. Earlier in the day, my class had discussed–among others–parts XI and XII of the novel, two sections in which the violence and depravity in the abandoned mental hospital reaches new depths. Rape and a stabbing death areContinue reading “Trigger Warnings For Assigned Readings?”
Samir Chopra 