Sasha Handley— Large swathes of the modern industrialized world are in the grip of a sleep-deprivation crisis. So say Jonathan Crary and Ariana Huffington, who represent just two voices in a chorus of recent critical commentaries highlighting the corrosive effects of our globalized 24/7 culture on sleep’s duration and quality.
Andreas Fahrmeir— U.S. citizenship has emerged as an issue several times during this year’s presidential campaign. There were debates on whether birthright citizenship is (and should be) protected by the constitution, and concerning the relationship between birth in the U.S. and descent from a U.S. citizen in determining whether individuals
Salil Tripathi— I was not yet ten when the first refugees from the country formerly known as East Pakistan began arriving in India. Our parents and our teachers told us how Pakistani military had declared martial law in East Pakistan, and thousands of troops had landed there. Many people had
Sam van Schaik— …The logic of the text is causation: If you do x, then y will happen. This is, of course, karma. Every event comes about because of previous events. Moreover, every event sets up chains of causation that produce innumerable further effects. The Buddha’s teachings on karma take this
Neil Faulkner— A hundred years on from Sykes-Picot, the Middle East is in turmoil. These two things are intimately related. Mark Sykes was a British diplomat, François Georges-Picot his French opposite number. They gave their names to a secret agreement to carve up the decaying Ottoman Empire between Britain, France,
Eileen Hunt Botting— Memes are a staple of contemporary popular culture, but most people would be hard pressed to define what exactly they are. Simply put, memes are widely recognizable yet variously replicated symbols of ideas. In the twenty-first century, most people associate the meme with social media, in which a
Rachael Coakley— Jessica started her freshman year of high school in great spirts. Then, in early October, she began to get daily headaches after school. Her headaches typically began around 4 PM and persisted through the evening making it difficult for her to complete homework. When Jessica couldn’t finish assignments
Manisha Sinha— Most Americans greeted Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew’s decision to put Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist heroine of the Underground Railroad, on the front of the twenty-dollar bill and relegate the Indian hunting President Andrew Jackson to its back with approval. The ironies abound. Fugitive slaves like Tubman most feared
Ibrahim Fraihat— Five years have passed since several Arab countries revolted against their repressive regimes, and peace and stability are nowhere in sight. The unraveling of their political systems pushed these countries into challenging transition processes where violence is always a serious possibility. Yemen and Libya’s civil wars present blunt
Tarek Osman— In 1801, the rulers of Tripoli, in today’s Libya, declared war on the US, after the republic had attacked North African corsairs who had repeatedly pirated American ships in the western Mediterranean. American politicians were not particularly worried about the impact of the Libyan threat on their republic,