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January 27, 2010

Kelly Oliver on Rorotoko

Kelly Oliver author of Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human recently discussed her book on Rorotoko. Oliver stresses the importance of animals in Western philosophy “to make the case that humans are special.” Oliver begins: Philosophers have...

January 26, 2010

Mark C. Taylor in The Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Chronicle Review recently featured Mark C. Taylor highlighting his new philosophical memoir Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living and his provocative views about academia’s status quo. In his article Eric Banks, calls Taylor’s memoir of his...

January 25, 2010

My Life with the Taliban — Events and Reviews

Interest and discussion has already begun about the just-released memoir My Life with the Taliban, by Abdul Salam Zaeef. In the book, Zaeef recounts his early life in Afghanistan, joining the Jihad against the Soviet Union in 1983, helping to...

January 22, 2010

Go Jets!

This Sunday the New York Jets have a chance to return to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1969. On the other hand, they can also add another loss to a series of disappointments in their long history....

January 21, 2010

A Ricci Resurgence: On Friendship and Maps

As reported in yesterday’s New York Times, the Italian-born Jesuit priest, Matteo Ricci, who died in 1610 is once again back in the news. The New York Times article reviews the current exhibition at the Library of Congress of Matteo...

January 20, 2010

Interview with Dorothy N. Gamble and Marie Weil, authors of Community Practice Skills: Local to Global Perspectives

The following is an interview with Dorothy N. Gamble, Clinical Associate Professor Emerita at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Social Work and Marie Weil, Berg-Beach Distinguished Professor of Community Practice at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill...

January 19, 2010

Terry Castle on Susan Sontag and "Notes on Camp"

On Sunday, Terry Castle, editor of The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall, was featured in always-entertaining Q & A included in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. In addition to being the author of several...

January 15, 2010

"Susan Sontag, my prose's prime mover, ate the world." — Wayne Koestenbaum

The quote from Wayne Koestenbaum comes from his essay in the recently published volume The Scandal of Susan Sontag. Tomorrow, January 16th would have been Sontag’s 77th birthday, so we thought it appropriate to highlight the book and Sontag herself....

January 14, 2010

Steven Cohen on Haiti and the Obama Administration

“This is a critical moment for the United States and the Obama administration to demonstrate that the lessons of our government’s shameful response to Katrina have truly been learned.”—Steven Cohen, “Haiti Is a Critical Test for the Obama Administration.” Steven...

January 14, 2010

Teens in Crisis

Frederic Reamer, co-author of Teens In Crisis: How the Industry Serving Struggling Teens Helps and Hurts Our Kids was tapped to be the blogger on adolescent issues for the recently aired PBS TV series This Emotional Life. The series aired...

January 13, 2010

Cixous to go!

With the recent publication of The Portable Cixous, we are re-posting an interview with Cixous in which she discusses how the concept of intellectual has been masculinized, the idea of universalism, and more (see below). For those interested in a...

January 12, 2010

Darwin & Poetry? An interview with John Holmes

The following is an interview with John Holmes the author of the recently published Darwin’s Bards: British and American Poetry in the Age of Evolution. Question: There has been a lot written and said about Darwin recently, but Darwin’s Bards...