Three weeks after Jane Doe was gang raped at a frat house at Cornell, she phoned one of her alleged rapists, sophomore Winston Lee. According to records released to the New York Times, Lee allegedly forced oral sex upon Jane Doe and snorted ketamine off her body. He was suspended for two years, put on probation upon his return, and required to write an essay about what he had learned from the experience. Yesterday, we learned that this is what Lee said to Jane Doe on the phone: I’m so sorry about all, like, the backlash you’re getting from this, by the way…Oh, dude, I’m, I’m so sorry. Like, I feel so bad for you, dude. Almost immediately after the […]
At the New York Review of Books, I talk with the novelist Karan Mahajan about literature and politics. Karan’s got a wonderful new novel, The Complex, which I highly recommend. It’s about a right-wing Indian politician, who hails from an illustrious family of Indian founders. It’s an uncommonly subtle, at times sympathetic, account of a man, and his family, who are charming, ugly, lovable, impossible, cruel, selfish, narcissistic, people who live in a complex, both architecturally and psychologically, and who are complexed by that living. What I love about Karan’s writing is that he’s absolutely unafraid to go places where a lot of other writers would hold back or judge or feel the need to remind the reader that they’re […]
Over the last 24 hours, it’s become clear that the “statement” Jane Doe gave to the Cornell University police, which was then delivered to the Tompkins County District Attorney, was not anywhere close to the initial statement she gave to the police. As Paisley Currah has been saying for days, it’s critical we understand this piece of the puzzle because otherwise we can’t make any sense of how this case of gang rape at Cornell was handled. After she was gang-raped, Jane Doe talked to the Cornell police for hours. The transcript of what she said to the police is about 120 pages. Here are some of the statements she gave them: “I can say with 100 percent confidence I […]
In all the conversation about Nikole Hannah-Jones’s essay, few people have focused on what I think is the real lunacy at the heart of that story. Though Hannah-Jones mentions it in her piece, it comes out most clearly in an exchange, on This American Life, between Hannah-Jones and her daughter Najya: Nikole Hannah-Jones: It’s not like I never had any doubts about my choice. I did. And the only reason I’m OK with my choice now is I’m like, you’re fine. I felt this was important. I tried to do the right thing. Najya Hannah-Jones: And I think I’m fine because I’m in the school I am now. I feel like if I picked a different choice that you wanted […]
The writings and posts about 9/11 in the last 48 hours tend to follow an arc. They begin with people’s personal narratives of the day, where they were when they heard the news, how they felt, and then some larger reflections on the 25 years of history that followed. I want to do something similar, only I want to turn the personal wheel of history backward. Twenty-five, or maybe 26, years before 9/11, I had my first encounter with the World Trade Center. My family had recently returned from living in Argentina and Uruguay. We had settled in Chappaqua, a suburb thirty miles north of New York City. Friends from Uruguay came to visit. We took them to Manhattan. One […]
One of the things that Leo Strauss does quite well, as a writer, which I never really noticed before, is that when he rehearses the arguments of others—what we today would call a lit review—he provides a genuine sense of drama to his account. That is, lit reviews are often the occasion, in our academic literature, for showing the reader that you have done your due diligence as a scholar or for offering an account of what everyone else gets wrong, thereby setting yourself up for giving to the reader what’s right, what’s correct, what’s true. Strauss doesn’t do that. Or he doesn’t do that in an obvious way. Instead, though he disagrees with all the other accounts that he’s […]
1. “A 1990 poll found that 76 percent of Americans regarded the deficit as ‘a very serious problem calling for immediate action.’….At the time, the debt was around $4 trillion. Now it’s over $31 trillion, bigger than our entire economy. In about 20 years, no amount of tax hikes or spending cuts will be able to stop the country from defaulting on its debt, according to projections shared by Kent Smetters, an economist at Wharton.” 2. “The White House approved another $17 billion worth in sales of missiles and related services to Gulf nations, despite worries inside the Pentagon about dwindling U.S. stockpiles.” 3. “New brain research might someday help people with dementia preserve their memories.”
1. Iran Condemns Attacks on Its Universities, Warns of Retaliation 2. How Bard College Became a Major Real Estate Player 20 Miles Away 3. It’s Probably Time to Clean Your Water Bottle 4. Federal Trial Opens Over Lack of Air Conditioning in Texas Prisons 5. Wealthy Investors Are Targeting Foes of Clean Energy, and They Want Revenge 6. U.S. Special Operations Forces Sent to Mideast as Trump Weighs Next Move 7. Israel Passes Law to Allow Hanging of Palestinians Convicted of Deadly Attacks 8. ‘The Real Housewives of Rhode Island,’ Plus 7 Things to Watch on TV This Week 9. Marine Is Charged With Stealing Missile Launcher and Ammunition 10. Why Marriage, for So Many, Is Less Appealing Than Ever
1. Israel Plans to Control Large Parts of Southern Lebanon, Defense Minister Says 2. The War Is Going Better Than You Think 3. With Moon Base and Nuclear Mars Mission, NASA Wants You to ‘Start Believing Again’ 4. The Oil Price Shock Could Make Italian Ice More Expensive 5. How Fast Do Our Journalists Type? 6. Blockade Iran’s Oil 7. ‘Who Doesn’t Love Elvis?’ Trump Takes an Unexpected Detour to Graceland. 8. Newsom Says He Regrets Remarks Comparing Israel to ‘Apartheid State’ 9. Should You Need to Prove Citizenship to Vote? Ask Kansas. 10. Young Graduates Face the Grimmest Job Market in Years
In no order… 1. You’ve Lost Your Health Insurance. It Shouldn’t Have Been a Surprise. 2. Trump’s Reaction to Mueller’s Death: ‘Good, I’m Glad.’ 3. I Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse. 4. The ‘Hunger Games,’ Hamptons-Style: Hiring a Private Chef for Summer 5. No Pills or Needles, Just Paper: How Deadly Drugs Are Changing 6. Student Freed From ICE Detention Worries About Those Left Behind 7. Across the West, Record Heat Is Colliding With a Snow Drought 8. Unclogging a Hairy Drain Is Gross. This $15 Stopper Makes It Less So. 9. The Future of the Democratic Party Is Emerging 10. Here’s what happened in the war in the Middle East on Saturday.
My latest pet writing peeve: the use of “a kind of” and “a sort of.” I don’t know when I began noticing this writing tic, in myself and in the larger culture, and I don’t know how long it has been around. I’m certain I’ve seen these phrases in writing from as long as a century ago, but it’s all over the place now. I associate it with a sort of—oops, I did it again!—literary affectation that one sees not only on social media but in legacy media as well. Along the lines of Lionel Trilling saying, “Goethe says somewhere…,” but in a tweet, a post, or a piece. It evokes a Jamesian spirit of the ineffable, the not quite, […]
On Saturday, November 1, there will be a celebration/conference on the work of the political theorist Nick Xenos, who died this past March. It will feature a wide range of scholars, colleagues, and friends, from Wendy Brown to Antonio Vázquez-Arroyo to Robyn Marasco and many more. I’ll be speaking as well, on Nick’s public writings in the London Review of Books, Granta, and other publications. It will begin at 11 am, and will be held at the New School, in the Wolff Conference Room. Please come, if you’re in town, and please make sure to circulate this widely. You can see the program below or in the attached pdf.
I thought my capacity for shock had been completely lost. But reading this message, which went out this morning to all public employees of the State of Virginia, stunned me: Good morning, State Colleagues: Many of you saw the Proclamation issued by the Governor last night asking Virginians to pause at noon today to reflect and pray for Charlie Kirk’s family, to reject all forms of violence, and for our Commonwealth and Nation to stand together. (You may find the Official Proclamation here.) Just as our Nation joined together after September 11th, so too must we make a similar and lasting commitment to defeat the evils that harm our democracy. Apparently, I learned on social media, even Williams College, in […]
America, where everything gets dialed up to 11. We can’t just have a country where people, being people, get mad and rowdy every once in a while and shout at or beat each other up. No, we have to live in a country where people are constantly murdering other people. We can’t have a country where a few hunters in the countryside own rifles to hunt deer. No, we must allow every manchild, as a matter of constitutional right, to shlep or shoulder an Uzi onto or into every public space and square. We can’t have leaders and spokespersons who quietly and consistently denounce all violence. No, we have to mount elaborate martyrologies that turn every grifter into a saint, […]
I’m in the New Left Review today, elaborating on some thoughts about the misleading nature of the term “late capitalism.” Despite its popularity in recent years, especially since the 2008 financial crisis and the left-populist insurgencies that followed, late capitalism is not an idea that lends itself to revolution or a vision of progress. It may express a wish to be rid of capitalism. But mostly it works as a theory of turning points that never turn – or worse. And in case you missed these other recent pieces of mine on questions of capitalism and politics, here they are again. Also, in the New Left Review, on Trump and tariffs and the Republican coalition. And in ARC, on the relevance of Adam Smith […]
1. Like other top law firms, the law firm at which Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, is a partner, has cut a deal with Trump. 2. Among various concessions, the firm has agreed to gut its DEI programs and to take on, pro bono, clients fighting alleged antisemitism. 3. Emhoff was brought into the firm, as a partner, in January. His specific portfolio was to advise corporations about “matters with significant reputational concerns.” 4. Emhoff’s firm announced its deal with Trump just hours after Emhoff told Georgetown Law students that “the rule of law is under attack. Democracy is under attack. And so, all of us lawyers need to do what we can to push back on that.” “Us lawyers […]
Most people on social media (and the left) are not too interested in what Trump does on tariffs. It doesn’t seem to raise the same questions and concerns about human rights that policies on immigration or DEI do. But as a sign of the limits of and constraints on Trump’s power, as well as of conflicts within his coalition, Trump’s moves on tariffs are really important. And I know the left does care about that (the extent of Trump’s power.) Also, don’t forget: outside of (yet related to) slavery, the fight over tariffs was probably the most significant conflict in American politics in the nineteenth century. In any event, Trump has repeatedly promised to impose across-the-board 25% tariffs tomorrow (February […]
You probably have to be Jewish to appreciate the full and bitter irony of this sentence: Nearly 11 months into a devastating war, a serious new challenge has emerged in Gaza: polio. Growing up, there were two uncontested heroes in the Jewish-American pantheon: Sandy Koufax and Jonas Salk. If you were really in the know, you’d add a third: Albert Sabin. Salk invented the polio vaccine, Sabin invented the oral polio vaccine. Now Israel has contributed an entirely new entry to the history of polio. It almost reads like a fable from Jewish literature. Except it’s not.
In two weeks, I start teaching. My class this fall is Politics Through Literature, which I’ve taught before but have made some big changes to. There are still seats available in the class. If you’re a student at Brooklyn College or any of the colleges in the CUNY system, or if you’re a student in the New York area (the class meets in person), you should sign up for the class. We meet on Monday and Wednesday mornings, from 9:30 to 10:45. The course readings are below; the syllabus is here. I’ve decided to open the semester with a set of readings on sex and sickness—Amia Srinivasan’s essay on teaching pornography and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor—and how our most […]
As anyone who knows me or reads my work knows, I have an infinite amount of interest in writing about the Holocaust, in whatever genre: history, fiction, essay, travelogue, diary, memoir, poetry, whatever. I also have an infinite appetite for voices in writing about the Holocaust: sardonic, ironic, bemused, impatient, poignant, heroic, anti-heroic, sociological, callow, creepy, fantastical, comedic, whatever. But the article in the September issue of Harper’s, “My Auschwitz Vacation,” by the writer Tanya Gold, tested my patience. It’s unbearably familiar and hackneyed. How many articles can we read on the silliness and stupidity of a tourist’s response to an extermination camp? Teenagers go to Auschwitz and take selfies. Justin Bieber visits the Anne Frank House and writes in […]
It’s probably been done before, though I don’t know of the book if it has, but one could write a terrific book on Marx and his breakups. The model here would be Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives. Instead of a book about five Victorian marriages, however, and the mix of intellectual, personal, and political sparks they emitted, this would be a book about Marx’s intellectual and political divorces. And how each was a critical turning point in his thought and life. The criterion for inclusion would be that Marx had a personal relationship with these individuals. No chapters on Hegel or Smith or Aristotle. Otherwise it would be too sprawling and insufficiently personal, more of a standard intellectual history rather than […]
Pat Carta, an extraordinary organizer with Local 34 and one of the great leaders of the unions at Yale, has died. I worked closely with Pat between 1993 and 1996. She trained me as an organizer, and though I don’t think she ever realized this, she felt like family to me. In fact, she reminded me a great deal of my family, particularly my mom. She was tough, warm, smart, loving, difficult, charismatic, powerful, relentless, demanding, honest, fearless. I always wished I could tell her what she meant to me, but she wasn’t someone who invited that kind of disclosure. Unless you said it from afar. As I’m doing now. Though it’s been nearly 30 years now, two things about […]
I’ve noticed an interesting if subtle choice of words in Walz’s commentary. He frequently invokes the phrase “the democracy.” This is noticeable for two reasons. First, since the rise of Trump, liberals and progressives of all stripes have resorted to the phrase “our democracy.” I’ve never liked it. It’s cringey and sanctimonious. It has the air of a fetish, as if democracy were a possession, like a precious ring or family heirloom. Democracy is not a possession; it’s a prospect and a process, a condition to be fought for, perpetually. Second, during the early half of the nineteenth century, democracy was frequently called “the democracy.” As if it were a threatening animal, which it was. It was initially the term […]
Before Tim Walz became a politician, he was a high school teacher. One of his passions as a teacher was the subject of the Holocaust. Walz wrote his masters’ thesis on “Improving Human Rights and Genocide Studies in the American High School Classroom.” It argued that the way we teach the Holocaust and genocide in school was mistaken. Walz pushed for an approach that didn’t separate the Holocaust from other genocides and human rights abuses. He also insisted that it was a mistake to focus on the maniacal character of Hitler and the Nazis. Instead he argued for a more integrated, comparative, and historicist approach, incorporating factors such as colonialism, economics, and civil war, and connecting the Holocaust to the […]