Category: Current Events

November 2, 2011

Denis Lacorne: Secularists or Christian? The Religious Lives of American Political Candidates in the Public Sphere

“What is certain is that the primary season has reopened a three century old battle of narratives opposing Enlightenment secularists to Neo-Puritan and evangelical believers.”—Denis Lacorne In an essay for the Huffington Post, Denis Lacorne, author of Religion in America:...

September 12, 2011

Paul Pillar on the Pretend Fix of U.S. Intelligence

“Ten years ought to be enough time for Americans to get over their overwhelming post-9/11 need for catharsis and reassurance and to look more critically at what was done for that purpose, including measures that pretend to be fixing something...

August 30, 2011

James Millward on Being Blacklisted by the Chinese Government

As reported in Bloomberg and The Washington Post, James Millward, author of Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, was among the “Xin­jiang 13.” The Xinjiang 13 are a group of scholars of China who were denied visas by the Chinese...

August 29, 2011

Logics of Disintegration: Contemporary Cultural Theory and the Riots in Britain

Graham MacPhee is the author of Postwar British Literature and Postcolonial Studies and associate professor of English at West Chester University. The basic facts, still less the complex causes and conditions of possibility, of the widespread civil unrest across England...

August 26, 2011

Erica Chenoweth on Nonviolence and the Libyan Uprising

Recent events in the Arab world have given Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan’s Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict an important timeliness. Erica Chenoweth recently wrote Think Again: Nonviolent Resistance, published in Foreign Policy, which we...

August 12, 2011

Interview with Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

The Public Record recently interviewed Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, author of A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilisations: Us and Them Beyond Orientalism. In the interview Adib-Moghaddam, who was born to Iranian parents in Turkey, discussed the continuing controversy over Iran’s nuclear...

August 10, 2011

Should Egyptians Use Violence? Erica Chenoweth Debates the Efficacy of Non-Violence

Over the past couple of weeks there has been a very spirited and thoughtful back-and-forth between Erica Chenoweth, author of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, and the author Thanassis Cambanis. The debate began with Cambanis’s...

August 4, 2011

Ludger Viefhues-Bailey on Anders Breivik and the Attacks in Norway

“After the horrid day in Oslo, it is undeniable: political religion has taken hold, even in allegedly secular Europe.”—Ludger Viefhues-Bailey In an essay for Religion Dispatches, Ludger Viefhues-Bailey, author of Between a Man and a Woman?: Why Conservatives Oppose Same-Sex...

August 1, 2011

Luv Puri: Peace Between India and Pakistan?

In his recent essay India and Pakistan’s Surprisingly Successful Negotiations published on the Foreign Policy blog, Luv Puri, author of the forthcoming Across the Line of Control: Inside Azad Kashmir, argues that real, if slow, progress is being made between...

June 27, 2011

Ludger H. Viefhues-Bailey on Romance and Same-Sex Marriage

In the aftermath of New York’s gay pride parade which celebrated the recent passage of same-sex marriage, we are posting an excerpt from Ludger H. Viefhues-Bailey’s Between a Man and a Woman?: Why Conservatives Oppose Same-Sex Marriage. In the book...

April 28, 2011

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam on The Metahistory of the Clash of Civilizations

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, author of The Metahistory of the Clash of Civilizations: Us and Them Beyond Orientalism recently gave a fascinating interview about his book at e-IR as well as offering commentary about the situation in Bahrain for CNN. In his...

April 15, 2011

Christopher Davidson on Political Repression in the United Arab Emirates

In the current issue of Foreign Policy, Christopher Davidson, author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success: The Vulnerability of Success and Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, discusses the increasingly repressive tactics in the United Arab Emirates. In the face of...