Subjects Archives: Culture

  • The Politics of Freedom: Geopolitics, Minority Rights, and Gender

      The Sixth Annual Helen Pond McIntyre ’48 Lecture, Barnard College, 5 November 2009 The right to religious freedom is widely regarded as a crowning achievement of secular liberal democracies, one that guarantees the peaceful coexistence of religiously diverse populations.  Enshrined in national constitutions and international laws and treaties, the right to religious liberty promises […]

  • University of California: Priceless

      pen: $1.59 backpack: $28 used textbook: $60 dinner at home: $0.50 uc tuition fee increase: $1929 being unable to afford a college education: priceless there are some things that money can’t buy don’t let higher education be one of them Royce Choi is a student at UC San Diego. | | Print  

  • Is Judaism Zionism?  Religious Sources for the Critique of Violence

      Judith Butler’s lecture is preceded by Eduardo Mendieta‘s introduction. A certain problem emerges between religion and public life when public criticism of Israeli state violence is taken to be anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish.  For the record, I would like to make clear that some of those criticisms do employ anti-Semitic rhetoric and do engage anti-Semitic […]

  • Negotiating in a Difficult Economic Environment

      “[I]t may be surprising to learn that faculty salaries are not a major component of the total costs at most universities.  For instance, at my institution, Eastern Michigan University, faculty salaries make up only 24 percent of total expenses.  So where is the money going?” — Howard Bunsis Conclusion: Yes, these are bad economic […]

  • Questioning Assumptions about Gender and the Legacy of the GDR

      If we examine the status of women strictly from the socioeconomic perspective, this portrayal of reunification [as the silencing in which traces of the East German social, cultural, and ideological framework were erased and replaced by the Western capitalist social, economic, and cultural framework] seems apt.  Indeed, scholars persistently describe the reunification as a […]

  • U.S. Public Diplomacy toward Iran: Structures, Actors, and Policy Communities

      Abstract: This dissertation is an in-depth study of the structures, actors, and policy communities associated with U.S. public diplomacy toward Iran.  Since 2006, the U.S. government has spent more than $200 million for its Iran-related public diplomacy via State Department “democracy promotion” programs, National Endowment for Democracy, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors.  These […]

  • Veterans Brock McIntosh and Rick Reyes on Afghanistan

      “I thought as soon as we hit the ground, we would immediately start changing things and making it better for the people, but, during the entire time I was there, we rarely did any kind of humanitarian aid missions.  They have a lot of social issues that they are dealing with, like poverty and […]

  • Gathering Rage Revisited

      In 1992, I was a thwarted, guilt-ridden and depressed revolutionary, living underground with my lesbian partner and two-year old daughter in St. Louis.  I was part of a tiny group that had gone underground at the beginning of the 1980s, responding to the collapse of the mass movements after the end of the Vietnam […]

  • Bassidji and Me

      Click on the image to watch excerpts from Bassidji. In 2000, 16 years after my arrival in France, I decided to go back to live in Iran for a while to gain a better understanding of my country. In 2002, a combination of circumstances gave me an opportunity to attend a ceremony of national […]

  • The Impossible Union of Arab and Jew: Reflections on Dissent, Remembrance and Redemption

      Listen to the 2008 Edward Said Memorial Lecture delivered by Sara Roy at the University of Adelaide on 11 October 2008: Download the text of the lecture in PDF: <adelaide.edu.au/esml/transcripts/2008/ESML-BY-Sara-ROY-2008.pdf>. Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.  Trained as a political economist, Roy has […]

  • October 24 Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education

      We have the power to stop the catastrophic budget cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs — but to save public education in California requires coordinating our actions on a statewide level. We invite all UC, CSU, CC, and K-12 students, workers, teachers, and their organizations across the state to participate in and collectively build the […]

  • Spinoza and the Claims of Modernity

      Travis L. Frampton.  Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of the Bible.  London: Continuum International Publishing Group, Limited, 2006.  262 pp.  $150.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-567-02593-7. Brayton Polka.  Between Philosophy and Religion, Vol. I: Spinoza, the Bible, and Modernity.  Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006.  276 pp.  $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-1601-2. Brayton Polka.  Between Philosophy and […]

  • Freedom Dance: A Party and Benefit for the Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign

    | | Print

  • Back to the Future: The Arab Nationalist Tradition and the Political Imagination of Today

      The Arab and Muslim world is indeed in crisis.  This crisis, however, may give us a new opportunity to reclaim our fate from foreign powers, local autocrats, and religious fanatics.  To do so, we can benefit from recuperating the best elements from our great tradition of Arab nationalism. Under the banner of “Arab nationalism,” […]

  • The “Cosmopolitan Century”: European Re-Membering

      Natan Sznaider.  Gedächtnisraum Europa: Die Visionen des europäischen Kosmopolitismus; eine jüdische Perspektive.   Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008.  153 pp.  EUR 16.90 (paper), ISBN 978-3-89942-692-2. As Europe moves into the twenty-first century, its search for a shared identity continues to occupy academic journals, the feuilleton pages, and Eurocrats eager to underwrite a by-and-large successful administrative […]

  • A Simple Question about Israel

      On 2 August 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families (more than 50 people) from their homes; Jewish settlers immediately moved into the emptied houses.  Although Israeli police cited a ruling by the country’s supreme court, the evicted Arab families […]

  • I Did What My Heart Told Me to Do

      This is not the first time that I stand trial for my beliefs.  But it is the first time that they will probably be able to stop me. I always knew that many people silently supported me, and that if I ever got into trouble they would stand behind me.  This moment has come. […]

  • Slide Presentation and Discussion: Mohammad Javad Jahangir, The Invisible Crowd

      Slide Presentation and Discussion: MOHAMMAD JAVAD JAHANGIR, THE INVISIBLE CROWD Presented by Mohammad Salemy Friday, August 14, 2009, 8:30 pm Little Mountain Studios 195 E. 26th Ave (at Main St.), Vancouver, B.C. Canada From Mohammad Javad Jahangir, The Invisible Crowd “Do not write the history of Iran in a foreign hand” DADABASE is pleased […]

  • Contrary to Its Hard Line, EU Bends to Iran

      Despite its criticism of Tehran’s handling of protesters, the EU shies away from a serious diplomatic conflict with Iran.  Both the Swedish EU Council Presidency and individual EU member states will participate in the inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that, “given the circumstances surrounding the controversial reelection” of […]

  • U.S. Continues to Train Honduran Soldiers

      A controversial facility at Ft. Benning, Ga. — formerly known as the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas — is still training Honduran officers despite claims by the Obama administration that it cut military ties to Honduras after its president was overthrown June 28, NCR has learned. A day after an SOA-trained army general […]