Toyin Falola and Raphael Chijioke Njoku— The subject of Black music and its African cultural roots is arguably one of the most engaging topics in contemporary Africana studies, cultural anthropology, and ethnomusicology. It is compelling because the record of successes attained by Black music artists across the world is one
Harold Bloom— In what sense does deep reading augment life? Can it render death only another hoyden? Most literary representations of death do not portray her as being particularly boisterous. Why “her”? Is it the long cavalcade associating death and the mother? I have learned from Epicurus and Lucretius what
Ralph J. Gleason— Ralph J. Gleason: I was fascinated by the article that you did in Downbeat last year with Don DeMicheal. I read it again last night and I wanted to ask you, have you gotten back further than Sidney Bechet? John Coltrane: No, I haven’t. Since then I
Eileen Myles— The second detail pertaining to the invite I received to give this talk is that I have been living in an apartment in New York for forty-two years so that’s where most of my life has occurred. My living, my thinking, my copying. It’s one of those East
James Ladyman & Karoline Wiesner— In 2015 representatives of 196 states agreed to hold the warming of average global atmospheric temperature above pre-industrial levels to well below 2°C, and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C—this is the Paris Agreement. However, just a few years later, in 2019, warming
Rebecca Lissner and Mira Rapp-Hooper— Foreign policy elites have reached a near-consensus that the liberal international order led by the United States since World War II is fraying, as its institutions, laws, and norms are growing less effective and its principles of free markets, democracy promotion, constraints on the use
Gavin Weightman— The huge international effort to develop an effective vaccine against the coronavirus suggests that it is only with the development of modern medicine that an antidote could be found for a deadly virus. Yet the concept of immunization is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. And its
Mark Tushnet— Progressives both in Congress and outside it have begun to talk seriously about “Supreme Court reform” in the aftermath of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing and her replacement—as it now seems—by Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Discussions have focused on three possible methods of “rebalancing” the Supreme Court: enlarging
William N. Eskridge Jr.— Ruth Bader Ginsburg passionately loved her family, her job as a judge, constitutional law, and opera—not always in that order. I first came to know and admire Ruth through our shared academic interests and through my beloved Georgetown colleague Marty Ginsburg. But in the last decade,
Rick Hasen— Within minutes of the announcement of Justice Ginsburg’s death, we started seeing the argument advanced that a Supreme Court confirmation needs to be rushed so that a Justice is in place before the election, so as to break a potential 4-4 tie on an 8-Justice Supreme Court. President Trump made