Robespierre, in a speech to the Jacobin Club, which began on 2 January 1792, and concluded on 11 January, responding to the Girondins call for war: [T]he most extravagant idea that can arise in the mind of a politician is the belief that a people need only make an armed incursion into the territory ofContinue reading “Robespierre On The Iraq War(s)”
Category Archives: Politics
Why Do Yankees Fans Venerate Derek Jeter?
In an interview with The Allrounder, my friend Amy Bass (a Red Sox fan!) takes on the following question: The Yankees’ longtime captain, Derek Jeter, is retiring this season and has been the object of widespread veneration throughout the league. Do Red Sox fans share in this respect of Jeter? and answers, in part, thus:Continue reading “Why Do Yankees Fans Venerate Derek Jeter?”
Letting The Feminists Know What Time It Is
A couple of years ago, in a post commenting on Virginia Held‘s Sprague and Taylor Lecture at Brooklyn College, I wrote: My association with her goes back some twenty years, when I first began my graduate studies in philosophy as a non-matriculate student at the CUNY Graduate Center [in the fall of 1992]. My firstContinue reading “Letting The Feminists Know What Time It Is”
The Wedding As Public Shared Celebration
This past weekend, I attended an ‘inter-faith’ wedding, staged in a beautiful, rural, upstate New York location–on a farm. It was an emotional and moving experience. I didn’t just attend the wedding; I also ‘officiated’; that is, I ‘performed’ the wedding ceremony. I read out a brief opening address, and with a co-officiant, shepherded theContinue reading “The Wedding As Public Shared Celebration”
The Central Park Five: Justice Gone Wrong
One night, late in April 1989, I sat in an apartment in Jersey City, discussing the Central Park jogger rape case with two friends. One of them, a black Haitian-American, expressed unease over the press and television coverage of the case, the use of the language of ‘wolf packs,’ ‘savages,’ ‘wilding,’ and all of theContinue reading “The Central Park Five: Justice Gone Wrong”
Nevil Shute’s _On The Beach_ And Normative Epistemology
The first reading in my Philosophical Issues in Literature class this semester–which focuses on the post-apocalyptic novel–is Nevil Shute‘s On The Beach. I expected, more often than not, moral, ethical, and political issues to be picked up on in classroom discussions; I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the very first class meeting–on Monday–honed inContinue reading “Nevil Shute’s _On The Beach_ And Normative Epistemology”
Protesting Gaza: After Gaol, A Day in Court
This morning, I reported to the New York City Criminal Court to be arraigned on charges of disorderly conduct (blocking traffic)–these stemmed from my arrest during a civil disobedience protest staged outside the Israeli mission to the UN on July 29th. My half-day in court was not as tedious and onerous as my day of imprisonment. ItContinue reading “Protesting Gaza: After Gaol, A Day in Court”
Steven Salaita And The Anger Of the Subjugated
In response to my post yesterday, which I crossposted over at the NewAPPS blog, a couple of readers there wondered about the analogy I had drawn between Professor F and Steven Salaita‘s cases. Reader Meir Alon suggested my comparison was ‘very wrong’, Darius Jedburgh said my comparison of Salaita was, indeed, ‘slanderous’, and yet anotherContinue reading “Steven Salaita And The Anger Of the Subjugated”
Steven Salaita And The Feminist Professor Who Praised Valerie Solanas
Here is a story of a professor, whose tweets got her into trouble. The professor in question is a feminist, Professor F–sometimes termed ‘radical’ by her friends, colleagues, and academic foes for her uncompromisingly feminist scholarship and her vigorous, no-nonsense rhetorical style, which is well-versed in the demolition of putative rebuttals to feminist theory andContinue reading “Steven Salaita And The Feminist Professor Who Praised Valerie Solanas”
Calling Bullshit On ‘Outside Agitators’ in Ferguson
A few days ago, a friend on Facebook posted the following as his status: Would any of you be down to help me organize a march on Ferguson, MO? Dead serious. It’s something I hope would send a powerful message to the powers that be, but I’d need help getting it all together. I mean,Continue reading “Calling Bullshit On ‘Outside Agitators’ in Ferguson”
Samir Chopra 