Perspectives on the political scene, public discourse, and matters of policy that are making the world around us.
One thing is for certain: he would not have caught the measles. This is the case because in 1721, in the midst of a smallpox epidemic that would kill over eight hundred Bostonians within the year, Mather, having learned of inoculation from his African slave Onesimus, began a public campaign to urge Bostonians to be…
Editor’s Note: this essay was scheduled prior to the announcement of the Ferguson Grand Jury’s decision. We have decided to publish it as scheduled, following the belief, expressed here, that love and pleasure are not the opposite of politics, rage, or grief, but rather are politically essential expressions of our humanness. This is a difficult…
Beginning with the title, it’s hard not to feel welcomed by Invitation to Dance, a new documentary by Simi Linton and Christian von Tippelskirch that screened last Saturday at the Margaret Meade Film Festival in New York City. It invites us into a world where the freeing, sensuous power of dance is available to many different…
The most noticeable thing about the recently launched Whiteness Project is that public responses to it have been so varied. The website gives an initial description of “a multiplatform investigation into how Americans who identify as “white” experience their ethnicity.” The project’s director and producer, Whitney Dow, orients the project around ideas that fall within…
The horror stories about Ebola seem to be proliferating as quickly as the disease itself. International newspapers and even governmental edicts speak of zombies. Here in the US, Twitter is ablaze with conspiracies tying Ebola to infiltrating immigrants. On the airwaves, Laura Ingram and Rush Limbaugh accuse President Obama of deliberately sacrificing US interests to…
“Best sex? Oh, it’s just so hard to rate these things. There’s degree of difficulty, style points, choice of music. Did they land on their feet during the dismount? Different people have different strengths, it’s just impossible to tell, but anything over a nine is excellent.” —Blanche Devereaux, The Golden Girls A few…
Over the past two years, gaming culture’s gender problem has been dragged out into the light. Women like Zoe Quinn (a game developer) and Anita Sarkeesian (a feminist pop culture critic) have been the targets of violent sexualized harassment, rape, and death threats. Both women were driven from their homes after their tormentors posted their…
Since 1945, American culture has functioned less as friendly emissary than zombie horde. Marauding across continents, it devours brains, assimilates everything in its path, and leaves behind only ruin and childhood obesity. But as this onslaught spreads throughout Europe, one nation has boldly drawn its Maginot line in the sand. I refer, of course, to…