SPOTLIGHT

  • Falling Stars and Lined Pockets

    There is no analogy between a “pocket pardon” and an actual (or proposed) one, any more than there is between a forged passport and a valid one, except that both documents appear to say the same thing—and thus might fool someone into mistaking one for the other. Indeed, a “pocket pardon” is a contradiction in terms, just as a forged passport isn’t a passport, but a seductive imitation: a fake, like its author.

  • African American Existentialism: DuBois, Locke, Thurman, and King

    Race today is often presented as a social construct. But social constructions, as Black people know all too well, can create real existential crises. Philosophers of the Black Experience writing during the Modern Era of the African American Freedom Struggle (1896-1975) engaged questions of freedom, existence, and the struggles associated with the experiences of being Black in America.

  • Surviving the City of Arts

    How do we teach humanities to STEM students in a time of increasing suspicion about the goodness of technology?

  • The Struggle for Ecological Sanity

    By: Carl Boggs At this particular juncture of history, fraught with new dangers and new challenges, it is time for humanity (or crucial sectors of it) to being exploring the intersection between politics and ecology, between the requirements for radical change and unprecedented challenges posed by the global crisis.  For many reasons, this dialectic has rarely been addressed, even among progressives and leftists.  One dimension of this failure – central to the key arguments that follow – is the declining relevance of the Marxist tradition, in all of its variants, to provide intellectual substance for any future anti-system politics.  The extreme gravity of what humanity now faces – not only global warming but a world of shrinking natural resources and drastic food shortages – means that time for creating a viable strategy is running out.  The problem worsens once the momentous tasks at hand are taken into account:  a revitalized politics, sustainable economic development, popular shifts in both cultural behavior and natural relations.   Sadly, in the world to date we encounter no movements, parties, or governments that even remotely meet this challenge. For at least a century after the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – that is, the

  • Silence as Speech: Reading Sor Juana’s Primero Sueño in the Light of her Final Silence

    Sor Juana’s silence is difficult to “read,” but it is easy to hear. What can it show us about the way the absence of speech can itself be a mode of participation in public discourse?

  • Buddha’s Political Philosophy

    By: Stefan Schindler Do not build fifty palaces, your highness. After all, you can only be in one room at a time. Nagarjunaa second century CE Buddhist sage, to an Indian king Nagarjuna’s suggestion – combining wisdom and wit – exhibits the essence of Buddha’s political philosophy: simplicity, humility, compassion. To open a vista onto Buddha’s vision of a just society, this essay takes a brief look at Siddhartha Gautama’s life story; sketches the Buddhist worldview; traces the evolution of Buddhism; and concludes with an outline of Buddha’s political philosophy. Along the way, we’ll draw parallels between Buddhist and Platonic thought, and reference the embrace of Buddhist ideals by peacemakers in the modern and postmodern world.

THEORY

Falling Stars and Lined Pockets

By |May 14th, 2021|0 Comments

There is no analogy between a “pocket pardon” and an actual (or proposed) one, any more than there is between a forged passport and a valid one, except that both documents appear to say the same thing—and thus might fool someone into mistaking one for the other. Indeed, a “pocket pardon” is a contradiction in terms, just as a forged passport isn’t a passport, but a seductive imitation: a fake, like its author.

African American Existentialism: DuBois, Locke, Thurman, and King

By |May 7th, 2021|0 Comments

Race today is often presented as a social construct. But social constructions, as Black people know all too well, can create real existential crises. Philosophers of the Black Experience writing during the Modern Era of the African American Freedom Struggle (1896-1975) engaged questions of freedom, existence, and the struggles associated with the experiences of being Black in America.

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PRACTICE

Falling Stars and Lined Pockets

By |May 14th, 2021|0 Comments

There is no analogy between a “pocket pardon” and an actual (or proposed) one, any more than there is between a forged passport and a valid one, except that both documents appear to say the same thing—and thus might fool someone into mistaking one for the other. Indeed, a “pocket pardon” is a contradiction in terms, just as a forged passport isn’t a passport, but a seductive imitation: a fake, like its author.

Villagers & Pillagers: Who Will Survive the Collapse?

By |April 30th, 2021|1 Comment

Green survivalists hope humans will wake up to their universal peril, overcome their addiction to fossil fuels, and ditch the ecocidal economy that pursues profit at the expense of people and the planet. To create a sustainable alternative, these “bioneers” are committed to healing humanity’s toxic relationship with the Earth by integrating the wisdom of indigenous cultures with the most useful insights of science and ecology. Unfortunately, ecovillagers are oblivious to, and woefully unprepared for, a looming threat to the future they hope to create. While they hone their abilities to live peacefully with each other and the planet, other survivalists intend to stay alive through plunder and pillage.

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JUSTICE

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ARTS & LETTERS

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