June 11, 2009

Jameel Jaffer Discusses the Suppression of CIA Documents on "Hardball"

Jameel Jaffer, co-author of Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond, recently appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews to discuss the suppression of CIA documents relating to the interrogation of prisoners at Guantánamo and...

June 10, 2009

Marda Dunsky on Satellite Television in the Arab World

In a recent article for the Wide Angle Web site, Marda Dunsky, author of Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, looks at the phenomenon of satellite television in the Arab world. Dunsky argues that...

June 9, 2009

Candidate and Blogger Gianni Vattimo

Gianni Vattimo, noted European intellectual and author of the recently published Not Being God: A Collaborative Autobiography, was a victorious candidate in last weekend’s European Parliamentary elections. Moreover, his party, the leftist Italy of Values Party, was considered a winner...

June 8, 2009

"In North Korea, everyone knows that a labor camp is a place where life is suspended. One does not live there, one slowly dies there. I was simply another dead soul in Camp No. 14."

As the New York Times and others have reported, North Korea sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor. While little is known about them, the North Korean labor camps are notorious for their brutal conditions. One of...

June 5, 2009

Marc Lynch on Obama's Speech

President Obama’s speech today in Cairo met the bar he set for himself. In an address modeled after the Philadelphia speech on race, he forewent soaring oratory in favor of a thoughtful, nuanced and challenging reflection on America’s relations with...

June 5, 2009

Anecdotal Evidence Weighs in on Our Savage Art

Patrick Kurp’s Anecdotal Evidence, an excellent lit-blog, recently devoted a post to William Logan’s new collection Our Savage Art: Poetry and the Civil Tongue. As might be expected from any reader of Logan, Kurp does have some misgivings about Logan’s...

June 5, 2009

Forward Reviews Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal

Forward magazine recently reviewed Dana Evan Kaplan’s forthcoming Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal. In his book Kaplan notes the many ways in American Judaism has changed even in the span of the post-war era as the conventional denominational structure...

June 4, 2009

Stephen Cohen Rethinks Russia

Stephen Cohen, the author of the just-published Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, recently appeared on Dan Rather Reports. Cohen joined two other prominent Russian scholars to discuss the future of U.S.-Russian relations. In...

June 3, 2009

The Valve Continues Its Discussion of Jenny Davidson's Breeding

“Jenny Davidson’s new book of cultural criticism, entitled Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century, is one of the strangest and most elliptical works of its kind I’ve ever read.”—Joseph Kugelmass “After challenging the reader’s expectations about the forms...

June 2, 2009

Google Enters the E-book Market

This past weekend witnessed a slightly toned down, slightly anxious, but still enthusiastic Book Expo America (BEA), the book industry’s largest trade show. (For a wrap-up of the show, you can visit Galley Cat, Jacket Copy, or Publishers Weekly, and...

June 1, 2009

Eat Me Daily Reviews Building a Meal

We’re a little bit late with this but along with their excellent accompanying photographs (see above), showcasing the beautiful interior and exterior design of Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism, Eat Me Daily also provides a very...

May 28, 2009

Gary Steiner on His Book Animals and the Moral Community

The Web site Rorotoko has a cover interview/post with Gary Steiner in which he discusses his recent book Animals and the Moral Community: Mental Life, Moral Status, and Kinship. Steiner’s post describes his book’s exploration and critique of the Western...