From Sunday’s WashingtonPost Review of Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. By David Nirenberg. Norton. 610 pp. $35 Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics, And the Catholics hate the Protestants, And the Hindus hate the Muslims, And everybody hates the Jews. So sang Tom Lehrer in his satirical song “National Brotherhood Week.” It’s no news that … Read more
April on campus is typically a time of intense work for faculty and students (exams, theses) and liberating play (Foss Hill in the sunshine, drumming in the CFA). April is also “sexual assault awareness month.” Sexual assault remains one of the greatest threats to freedom and well-being around the world, and college campuses are not … Read more
The images and first-hand accounts from Newtown during the last few days have been wrenching. The specter of vicious violence turned against the very young makes us gasp for breath, makes us question the very fabric of our society. If this kind of thing can erupt in communities like ours, what kind of community are … Read more
From my remarks at commencement, May 27, 2012. To read the really important speeches, see: http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2012/05/27/commencement/ When most of you began your Wesleyan education in the fall of 2008, the world was in a precarious state. It was an odd time to be investing in the future. But that’s what education is: a hopeful investment … Read more
In the last week I attended two meetings worth travelling to. The first (in Washington D.C.) dealt with the intellectual-financial challenges facing American higher education, and the second (in Princeton) examined the role of the humanities in the public sphere. I was in Washington for a meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, … Read more
I received the sad email message from Professor Paul Schwaber on Friday: his close friend and COL colleague Elisabeth Young-Bruehl had died quite suddenly. Elisabeth was a philosopher, psychoanalyst, teacher…a great friend and mentor to many of my fellow-students at Wesleyan in the 1970s and for many years afterwards. She was a presence in the … Read more
The following book review appeared in this past Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. There are many faculty and students here at Wes interested in the problematic history of surveillance in our country. I’ll just mention here historian and American Studies professor Prof. Claire Potter’s original and important take on J. Edgar Hoover. You can find it … Read more
I reviewed “Rebels in Paradise” in yesterday’s Washington Post. I had taken the assignment with real pleasure, having great respect for the vibrancy of the Los Angeles art scene that developed in the 1960s and that continues to generate interesting work today. I spent more than fifteen years in Southern California, the last five of … Read more
Tonight (Thursday, April 7) is Take Back the Night, when members of our community gather to raise awareness about sexual violence and to create a safe, caring space for survivors to share their experiences. Just this week members of the administration participated in a conference call with White House officials and university leaders to discuss … Read more
Each year Wesleyan hosts the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, bringing together scholars, students, faculty and alumni in an intensive series of lectures and discussions. Past programs have focused on popular culture, on environmentalism, on ethics and on international problems of violence. I remember the series of talks on food, which really made me think … Read more
