Franck Salameh— Middle East specialists of a hundred years ago have traditionally been philologists trained in a dozen or more Middle Eastern languages, including Latin and Greek, but also the obligatory Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian among others. Today, many of the luminaries of this venerable area of inquiry
Judson Brewer— “Status Update,” an episode of the podcast This American Life, featured three ninth graders talking about their use of Instagram. Instagram is a simple program that lets people post, comment on, and share pictures. Simple but valuable: in 2012, Instagram was bought by Facebook for one billion dollars. The podcast episode began
What does a leftist foreign policy look like? Is it on the right track now or is it time for a change? We have Michael Walzer on to discuss. Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud
Joseph Turow— “Bricks and mortar is dead; long live bricks and mortar!” This was the surprising theme that emerged from the sprawling 2014 Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, reported Laura Heller, editor in chief of the online trade magazine FierceRetail. Everybody in retail had previously been emphasizing only the tremendous advantage that
Gary Dorrien— Martin Luther King Jr., at the end of his life, fixed on three reform objectives, a movement ambition, and something bigger. The policy objectives were to terminate racial discrimination in housing, establish a minimum guaranteed income, and end America’s global militarism. Sometimes he put it in ethical terms,
Stephen Mitchell— I backed into translation. As a young man at Yale Graduate School, dealing with a first heartbreak, I became fascinated with the Book of Job. What thrilled and perplexed me was a feeling that the poet who wrote it had seen something, had actually experienced the secret of
Lynne Vallone— I see big people. I also see small people. My body tells me who is big and who is small and signals the circumstances when I am larger or littler than someone or something else. I enjoy being big in some situations and small in others. Cuddling a
Michael Walzer— When, where, and how to use force is the hardest question in foreign policy debates, and it is especially hard for liberals and leftists, who mostly just want to say no. The ongoing American involvement in the Syrian civil war has posed these questions in the most difficult
Where do our senses come from and how do they work? What happens when they go wrong? We’ve got the answers to these questions and more with Rob DeSalle from the American Museum of Natural History.
Patrick Deneen, author of Why Liberalism Failed, discusses how the success of liberalism has led to its downfall. Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud