" What it's like to win a Nobel prize
Think Again: Why Democracy?
Stanley Fish offers 10 questions about democracy.
Lucian Freuds Ib and Her Husband (detail), 1992
DOSSIER: A late tribute to Doris Lessing | 12/10/2007
This year's Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to the 87-year-old British author Doris Lessing, whose novel "The Golden Notebook" (1961) is a classic of women's literature. Lessing also dealt with political themes like communism and colonialism.
What it's like to win a Nobel prize
By Maureen Freely
When my friend Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year, he had as many friends as a lottery winner.
NEWS: Nobel winner explains his novels
Exactly one year after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, Turkish author Orhan Pamuk gave a lecture in Rollins Chapel Thursday about the melancholic and self-reflective portrayal of Istanbul that made him famous.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
by Mick Hall
I have been somewhat nostalgic this week on Organized Rage, what with the anniversaries of the deaths of Anna Politkovskaya and Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, but I make no apologies for this as revisionist historians are hard at work distorting the lives and work of those who served the cause of truth, justice and equality. In keeping with this theme I have rounded off the week with a short piece about the 1981 Irish Republican Hunger Strikes that took place in the north of Ireland’s Maze Prison. I will return to current affairs next week with a look at the very worrying political developments in Turkey.
Salud Comandante Guevara
by Mick Hall
We are approaching the 40th anniversary of the death of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, who was executed in La Higuera, Bolivia by a member of the Bolivian Army Rangers in the pay of the United States Government. Throughout the world there will be meetings to celebrate the great revolutionary internationalist’s life and work. In Ireland Sinn Fein is holding a week of events which will culminate with a ‘Celebración de un héroe internacional’. A night of Cuban music and food, Cuban Ambassador to Ireland Noel Carillo and Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly will be amongst the speakers. There will also be similar celebrations of the life of Che Guevara in London and other EU cities.
Cultural Diversity, Economic Development and Societal Instability Within-nation linguistic diversity is associated with reduced economic performance, which, in turn, increases societal instability. Nations which differ linguistically from their neighbors are also less stable. However, religious diversity between neighboring nations has the opposite effect, decreasing societal instability
The Social and Political Views of American Professors (PDF; 778 KB)
Source: Neil Gross, Harvard University and Solon Simmons, George Mason University
Ethics 101
Academics have a lot to say about how other professionals conduct business. They seem strangely incurious about themselves.
By PETER BERKOWITZ
Enter Philip Roth
America's most decorated novelist on aging, reading and cellphones.
Art of seduction: sex through the ages
From ancient miniatures to modern film, 2,000 years of civilisation's frankest moments go on showRichard Gott: In the 40 years since Che Guevara's death the world has changed dramatically, yet he remains a significant political presence.
Democracy in retreat around the world
Democracy and good governance are on the retreat in a number of countries around the world, a wide-ranging report says
Democracy and philosophy
by Richard Rorty
Moral insight "is a matter of imagining a better future, and observing the results of attempts to bring that future into existence". Richard Rorty, who died on June 8, was one of the most public of public intellectuals. In the recent ten-year anniversary edition of "Kritika & Kontext", he outlined the anti-foundationalist premise of his philosophy. [Belarusian version added]
High finance - a game of risk
by Frédéric Lordon
The current financial crisis, originating from US credit markets, is just the latest in the bad track record of economic liberalization, which never seems to learn from constantly recurring disasters.
Eight remarks on populism
by Ralf Dahrendorf
A fissure has opened up between citizens and power, information gaps that invite conspiracy theories and patent recipes. The parliamentary process is empirically the best antidote to populism; its gradual erosion presents one of the greatest challenges to contemporary liberal politics.
Counter-revolution against a counter-revolution
by G.M. Tamás
Populist movements in eastern central Europe cater to the middle class fear of becoming déclassé as a result of the neoliberal destruction of the welfare state, writes G.M. Tamás.
The populist moment
by Ivan Krastev
Unlike the extremist parties of the 1930s, the new populist movements do not aim to abolish democracy: quite the opposite, writes Ivan Krastev. What we are witnessing is a conflict between elites suspicious of democracy and increasingly illiberal publics.
MALWARE, WARFARE, AND SELF-REPLICATION
by John Robb
The tinkering networks of the Internet criminal/hacker marketplace have produced a major innovation called the "Storm Worm" and it is rewriting the rules of engagement in computer security. It's essentially a new breed of malware that is a combination of worm/trojan/bot. What makes it special is that the Storm Worm's method of operation is sophisticated, so much so, that it is nearly immune to defense, suppression, or eradication -- demonstrated in that it has already infected up to 50 million computers and slaved them into a massive botnet.
OPEN SOURCE COUNTER-INSURGENCY
by John Robb
Long, awesome summary: History of Sexuality
by Jeremy
A long, awesome summary of the History of Sexuality (all 3 published vols) from a reader (who notes that this is National Coming Out Day): The life and times of French thinker, philosopher and historian Michel Foucault were nearly as amazing as the written works he left behind. Foucault was a lightning rod for controversy–and I [...]
Tenured radicals?
by Jeremy
Inside Higher Ed.: The results of the study find a professoriate that may be less liberal than is widely assumed, even if conservatives are correctly assumed to be in a distinct minority. The authors present evidence that there are more faculty members who identify as moderates than as liberals. The authors of the study also found [...]
Continental and analytical philosophy
by Jeremy
Some interesting comments on this all too often tired debate: Brian Leiter has claimed that the distinction between analytic and continental philosophy, whatever its merits might have been forty years ago, is no longer useful. Gualtiero Piccinini responds, arguing that there is a real distinction and that it goes like this: Analytic philosophy is a set of [...]
Essay: Revising Foucault, the future of Foucault studies
by Jeremy
An essay called Revising Foucault, the future of Foucault studies, by Colin Koopman, is available (pdf). Koopman is doing a postdoc at UC Santa Cruz (and left a comment to a post below that links to his review of Paras). He’s working with David Hoy. Koopman begins the Revising Foucault essay by questioning the recent interest in [...]
