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Volume 1 Issue 1, Winter 2006 Issue 2, Spring 2006	Volume 2 Issue 1, Autumn 2006 Issue 2, Winter 2007 Issue 3, Spring 2007	Volume 3 Issue 1, Autumn 2007 Issue 2, Winter 2008 Issue 3, Spring 2008
Volume 4 Issue 1, Autumn 2008 Issue 2, Winter 2009 Issue 3, Spring 2009

Spring 2009

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Nabokov’s Anti-Politics
Andrew Hamilton: Vladimir Nabokov seems at first glance to have very little to say about any political question. There is therefore a fundamental irony in the existence of what are often called his two “political novels.”
Déjà Vu: Rashid Khalidi on the Cold War Mindset
Ardevan Yaghoubi: I thought the Cold War had not been properly treated in the literature, which focuses on the point of view of Moscow or Washington rather than the point of view of the Middle East.
360˚
Noah Arjomand: I said I’d just come from Iran and he asked about the girls. I told him it was different there, they all had to wear headscarves and he said it didn’t matter, there were lots of Iranian girls here in Dubai and they were just 30-50 dirhams.
We Deserve Each Other: Rethinking Domestication and Its Implications for Animal Rights
Max Price: The morality to which these activists appeal is situated in a fundamentally flawed understanding of what anthropology and biology have taught us about the process of domestication.
A Pointed Apology
Brian Libgober: We must shake ourselves out of the torpor which has deeply affected cultural criticism and the humanities as a whole.
Animal Spirits, Behavioral Economics, and the Great Recession
Dmitri Leybman: George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller argue for the incorporation of behavioral and psychological considerations into macro- and microeconomics.
Taking the Street Out of Street Art
Sean Pears: While Shepard Fairey had been well known in his own right before the Obama campaign, this design has given him a new wave of attention, not only from his former base of skaters and street artists, but in the contemporary art community as well.
Photography by Emmy Mickevicius

Winter 2009

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New Sincerity in a Postmodern World
Andrew Chen: So what is New Sincerity? It represents a return to universality, emotion, and a renewed concern with the human condition.
Oppositional Politics under President Obama: Thoughts on a Left Approach
Aaron Greenberg and Adwait Parker: The left critique must adapt to a super-competent, sophisticated and politically sympathetic president—a much harder target than the eight years of conservative failure that preceded him.
The Tension of Conservatism
Jeremy Rozansky: Conservatives need to see their infighting in the context of the history of postwar American conservatism.
Reading Lapham's Quarterly Noah Ennis: From the thesis of an amnesiac media and the antithesis of a ponderous, unreadable parade of tomes, Lapham synthesizes a sleek, artfully decorated volume of distilled thoughts on a single theme of contemporary and enduring significance.
Behind "I Claim": the Dialectics of Writing
Ji Xia: Programmatic language creates at once an excess and a lack, and I consider this the major dilemma behind "I claim," which haunts me as my writing appears presumptuous and inadequate.
Saul Bellow, Literary Columbus
Elliot Hasdan: Bellow gives America a modern voice that rattles us and affirms that we're not through with serious novels and characters.
An Orderly Miscellany
Richard G. Stern: The need of a country like the post-Marshall Plan United States for tragi-farce is enormous.
Sapere aude!
Aaron B. Roberts: Barton is successful in perspicuously presenting what might plausibly be said to constitute the defining principles of biblical criticism. Still, the deeper question is whether his description and defense of biblical criticism lives up to his claim that biblical criticism approaches the text "on its own terms."
Economics and Politics: Inequality in Partisan Politics
Dmitri Leybman: Bartels's work will help dispel some of these myths about the saliency of "culture issues" in shaping the voting behavior of the working and lower-middle classes.
Fearful Symmetry: Looking Beneath the Surface of Alan Moore's Watchmen Ben Brubaker: By weaving overt oppositions and subtle parallels between Rorschach and Veidt into Watchmen, Moore warns his readers not to condemn one self-proclaimed hero as a hypocrite while letting the actions of another go unmonitored.
The Sexual Politics of Twilight Kira Bennett: To say that Twilight is a faithful depiction of a bygone time is to dangerously oversimplify its attitude toward gender roles and sexual politics, which in truth is much more nuanced and formidable.
The Space of the University: Notes from the Underground
Ardevan Yaghoubi: What is in play today is nothing short of a wide-ranging attempt to reframe the University using standards of instrumental logic.
Photography by Emmy Mickevicius

Autumn 2008

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New Departures: American Literature and the Grand Dialogue
Andrew Hamilton: That such an important and well-known author as Le Clezio could be all but non-existent in our bookstores is one thing, but the lack of interest in or response to his winning the most prestigious literary prize in the world is egregious.
Book Review. Code Green: Thomas Friedman Puts America on the Alternative Energy Alert Rachel Cromidas: If you ask Thomas Friedman, thanks to climate change, globalization and climbing population rates, the earth looks hotter, flatter and more crowded than ever before.
Guido Anselmi Goes to Washington
R. Daniel Smith: Through his noble attempt to do his part in preserving the polity, the reflective man is likely to find himself transformed from dutiful citizen into diffident skeptic.
Sola Scriptura and Christian Values Bryant Jackson-Green: As time moves forward and social norms change, Biblical interpretation becomes an increasingly confusing activity, as views are informed more so by outside influences rather than the Bible itself.
A Contemporary Problem: Music and the Listener
Erin Dahlgren: I’m compelled to understand what exactly might have constructed this barrier between a common lover of art like myself and the music of Olivier Messiaen.
Photography by Jasmine Kwong and Emmy Mickevicius

Spring 2008

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Letter to the Editor
Van Choojitarom
Against Practicality
R. Daniel Smith: Utilitarian arguments about the purpose of college ignore the intrinsic good of conversation that may be the most edifying aspect of one’s education
The Rights of Man, the Rights of Citizen
Aaron B. Roberts: Unless rights that are defined as inalienable spring from an understanding of human nature, they cannot fall under the category “human rights”
The Elusive Dialogue of Law and Literature
Elliot Hasdan: While the procedures and the decisions of the courtroom depend significantly upon narrative, the imposition of literary study upon such is elucidating but problematic
SCHIP and the Politics of Nescience
Joseph Dozier: The heated debate over President Bush’s SCHIP veto ignores fundamental problems caused by the program’s bureaucratic structure and inefficient administration
The Administration’s Bewildering Interpretation of the Kalven Report
Matthew Healey: If the University is to rely on the Kalven Report as a guide to its response on social and political issues, its newfound position on sustainability is untenable
The New Pornographers: Women and the Production of Raunch Culture
Jessica Hester: Women can be empowered by their role in the production of and participation in pornography, perhaps surprisingly, if it is executed on their own terms
Paul Thomas Anderson and the Ego
Thomas Manganaro: Among contemporary filmmakers, Anderson is the master at exposing man’s inner self in all its manifold complexity
Photography by Bobby Zacharias

Winter 2008

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Right Cause, Wrong Rhetoric?
Ellie Poston: Activists at a meeting of the London School of Economics Student Union inadvertently illustrate the deep significance of language as employed for political ends
The Open Possibilities of Dostoevsky’s Diary
Elliot Hasdan: Dostoevsky’s Writer’s Diary, initially released as a pioneering fanciful serial to which readers subscribed, represents an early hybrid of literary forms that still fascinates
Teacher of Evil? Not Quite
Aaron B. Roberts: An interview with Professors Catherine and Michael Zuckert on the polarizing, stubbornly relevant subject of their recent book, The Truth About Leo Strauss
UChicago: the Life of the Mind (Bowed to the Yoke)
Adwait Parker and Aaron Greenberg: The American college experience has become dangerously defined by a marketplace mentality rooted in consumerism that effectively serves nobody
Beyond the Political: the Other Orhan Pamuk
Andrew Hamilton: The masterful Turkish writer who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature has managed to subtly craft a double identity
More Than a Campaign Promise: Making Economic Equality a Social Priority
Bryan Duff: If they truly embrace the American commitment to equality, the presidential candidates must also confront our increasingly serious need for economic reform
The Aesthetics of Revival
Benno Nelson: In reviving theatrical productions with an eye towards contemporary relevance, directors perform a disservice to the plays and their new audience
The Hubris of David Simon
Gabriel Cahn: Wire producer David Simon’s blistering revenge against the Baltimore Sun has found an unintentional victim: the final season of his award-winning series
The World According to Paul Krugman
Dmitri Leybman: The maverick economist Paul Krugman analyzes the political forces shaping modern American income inequality in his new book, The Conscience of a Liberal
photography by Bobby Zacharias

Autumn 2007

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Questions for Michelle Obama
Alex Beinstein: “I’m not really giving a lot of thought at this point to the role I would play in January 2009—I’m much more concerned about the schedule for next week.”
The Torture Exception
Matt Mutino: I mean to illustrate an interesting quirk of American moral thinking: many citizens may oppose torture, war, and prison abuse with equivalent vigor. But this is not the norm.
Tipping the Scales: China’s Energy Ambitions in Africa
Peter Moffit: China has dramatically stepped up its efforts to reap the riches of Africa, and has lately become one of the most commercially influential foreign powers on the continent.
Towards a Postmodern Conservatism
Gabriel Cahn: Although true conservatives share with postmodern philosophers a distrust of modern institutions, they suspect the postmodernist obsession with ideology.
Whither Prescriptivism?
R. Daniel Smith: Clear and unclear thinking, precise and vague distinction, cogency and casuistry are all equally possible in standard and in nonstandard language.
Richard Dawkins’s Controversies and Redemptions
Thomas Manganaro: Dawkins comes across as a philosopher with the accessibility of a journalist and the creativity of a novelist.
Joseph Brodsky and a Poet’s Responsibilities
Elliot Hasdan: Brodsky’s biography, like any other poet’s, is in his love of language, which influences his sense of ethics and history, and not the other way around.
DeLillo’s Literary Leaps in Tackling 9/11
Dmitri Leybman: In Falling Man, DeLillo concentrates his literary efforts on portraying a troubled marriage forced to confront the strange realities of a post-9/11 world.
Allan Bloom’s Closing Revisited: Humane learning does still continue in North America—though not as those sympathetic to Bloom would like it to be.
Letters of the World
Bobby Zacharias

Spring 2007

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The Limits of Progress In Films By Sirk, Fassbinder and Haynes
Nicholas Baer: When placed within an aesthetic trajectory, the films can be seen both individually and collectively as critiques of the notion of social progress.
Teaching to the Test
Alexander DeWitt: A national test might ensure children learn critical standards, but teaching must be tailored to local student bodies.
Beyond the Red Herring
Brian Libgober: The real reason for the Iraq war is the coherent and cogent product of a number of very intelligent people, the culmination of a well-developed branch of thought on international relations, namely neoconservatism.
From Teenage Crisis to Girl Power: Looking Into Empowerment
Erin Moore: “Do you realize you are A LEADER?” reads the poster covering the front door of the Sadie Nash Leadership Project’s Brooklyn office. “We do. And we want to make sure YOU realize it too.”
A Medical School Commencement Address
Dan Luchins: I don’t doubt that hard work and virtue went into your studies and will go into your practice. I am only asking you to remember that many others worked just as hard and are just as virtuous but will be far less generously rewarded.
After Virginia Tech: Gun Control, Culture, and Violence Today
J. Thomas Bennett: In the earnest search for someone or something to blame for the Virginia Tech shootings, we need to start with a fresh view of where we are as a society.
On the Use or Abuse of Al-Fārābī
Aaron Roberts: Arabic philosopher Abū Nasr al-Fārābī made a lifelong study of the classical Greek tradition, and his interpretation of Plato is thought by some to be as authoritative as St. Thomas Aquinas’ interpretation of Aristotle.
Susan Sontag: An Appreciation
Aaron Greenberg: Sontag was a force. She wrote about film without ever being a film scholar; she wrote fiction without being a novelist; her cultural criticism was informed by philosophical study but she was no philosopher.
Hyde Park Advertorials
Bobby Zacharias

Winter 2007

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Indigenous Land Rights and the Latin American Revolution
Aaron Greenberg: The post-Columbian age in Latin America has been defined by imperialism, political and economic.
Richard McKeon: The Greatest Philosopher You Have Never Heard Of
Will Selinger: McKeon would question whether it is possible or desirable to approach an author without any lens at all, to read a book with one’s mind a completely blank slate.
Call Me Hagar
Jessica Hester: I recognize that the poets I idolize believed that the world was perfect when it was a man’s world; the uterus ruined everything.
Foreign Policy Faux Pas
Ben Oren: This large, shadowy manipulator of foreign policy goes by an almost child-like name: think tanks.
The Socioeconomic Context of Health and Healthcare
Robert Perlman: I don’t think we always appreciate the extent to which our environment is shaped by cultural practices and by the products of human activity.
Questioning Riddles and Riddling Questions
Jon Kurinsky: To understand the way to the answer, I have to know a lot more about what it is that I do in solving a riddle.
Aesthetic Objects and Interactivity
Garett Rose and Meredith Filak: The creator’s intention, when the narrative becomes its own property (and the meaning of that narrative becomes the audience’s), may or may not remain relevant.
Getting the Jokes: The Problem of Parody in Soviet Satire
Elliot Hasdan: Karen Ryan-Hayes superbly traces the dynamics of these Russian satirists, exploring a part of the “textual fabric of Russian literature” that, of course, no single study could exhaust.
An Interview with Donald Levine: Donald Levine discusses liberal education and his new book, Powers of the Mind.
Counterindications
Bobby Zacharias: I forged a thirty-nine cent stamp, and I thought that I’d pay for it later at a post office.

Autumn 2006

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Letters to the Editor
Aaron Greenberg; David Kaye
What is Terrorism? An Answer
Jonathan Williams: A small, subjective, but concrete description of terrorism in today’s world that I hope many readers will find surprising.
Questions and Riddles
Garett Rose: Solving the riddle is not knowing the answer, but knowing why the answer is the answer.
Reviving Tony Blair
J. Thomas Bennett: Whether or not it is true, opponents of the war—on both sides of the Atlantic—incorrectly assume that the pressure on Blair is due to the Iraq war.
‘REAL ID’ Capable of Anything But
Yesha Sutaria: Since REAL ID passed, thousands of refugees have been denied asylum as a result of its incompetently structured provisions.
The Libertarian Illusion
Mark Meador: A government which fails to maintain its inherited moral tradition fails its people.

Book Reviews

The Judaism Problem
Mordechai Levy-Eichel: A review of Elisa Albert’s How This Night is Different: Stories.

Reflections

Did a Liberal Arts Education Make Me Go Crazy?
Alexandra Squitieri: What was the point of researching competitors’ ads and going to endless meetings with clients? What was the point of advertising?
Reading for Vegetable Patch Souls
Rita Koganzon: It is to validate the thing, to make sense of our irrational experiences with literature that we write about it in the first place.
National Day in Beijing
Bobby Zacharias: There is no longer any space between the soldiers. All of them stand shoulder to shoulder. Their line will not be broken again.

Exclusive online content

Reflections on the CIA Bombing of Domadola
Matt Mutino: One would imagine that the deaths of four children, let alone thirteen innocent civilians, however justified, would warrant some degree of apology.

Spring 2006

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Defining Terrorism Down
J. Thomas Bennett: Withdrawal would not lead to the end of suicide attacks; it would only make our allies easier to kill.
Liberal Education and Me
Teresa Bejan: I maintain that an education that frees and empowers men is more necessary today than ever before.
A Discriminating Judge
Mark Meador: Why is discrimination bemoaned as evil? Because the term ‘discrimination’ has been hijacked.
Parliament and Parties in Iraq
Brian Hinkle: If your opponent thinks that your success was achieved through fraud or lies, they will not negotiate.
Addressing Global Warming
Arpit Gupta: Global warming may well be a moral question, but not in the way that Al Gore proposes.
Agnosticism Briefly Considered
Garrett Rose: The question of God’s existence is not to be rejected simply because it can’t be answered.
An Interview with Michel Houellebecq
trans. James Rumsey-Merlan: “In these matters I am capable of attaining an almost limitless level of contradiction.”
Reexamining Liberal Democracy
Sebastian Waisman: Theorists have set about to reexamine the oft-overlooked conflict between liberalism and democracy.
Here Comes Your Man
David Kaye: Men will not do what had always been women’s work; in fact, they look down on it.
A Modest Proposal for America’s Immigration Crisis
Matt Mutino: What to do? The solution is quite simple: send the illegal immigrants to Iraq.
A New Kind of Poetry
Aaron Midler: The Internet is necessary because it is the only medium in which a poem could be said to have “life”.
2 Thoughts about Being Jewish
Mordechai Levy-Eichel: What is old that survived to the modern day probably has power, probably has something to teach me.
Mearsheimer and ‘The Israel Lobby’
Lee Solomon: Suggestions that Mearsheimer colludes with the anti-Zionist conspiracy are both ironic and amusing.
Reflections on Genocide
Kati Proctor: Is it worthwhile for Armenians to continue to fight for recognition of this atrocity as a genocide?