Democracy’s real deal September 15, 2023 Was the US Consitution a masterpiece? The common answer has frequently been an unabashed “yes,” but many critics now complain that the Constitution was fatally flawed from the beginning. Read More
Will social scientists’ disputes over words ever end? August 16, 2023 Social scientists observe the social world. They measure and represent it. They advance and test truth claims about it. For these purposes, they classify things, they sort them into classes, they draw distinctions among them. Read More
The guardian tree: The birthplace of Carl Linnaeus July 26, 2023 In ancient times, Nordic people believed that the World Tree was an ash and the protective guardian tree a linden—a Tilia. The biography of Linnaeus should surely begin with a linden. Read More
Roni Horn’s reflections on Iceland June 07, 2023 I returned to Iceland with migratory insistence and regularity. The necessity of it was part of me. Iceland was the only place I went without cause, just to be there. Read More
On the tactics of modern strongmen April 27, 2023 Dictators have been changing. They did not loosen their grip over the population—far from it, they worked to design more effective instruments of control. But they did so while acting the part of democrats. Read More
To a slower life April 26, 2023 I live less than a mile from Walden Pond. There, in the woods on the east side of the pond, Thoreau built his small cabin and wrote his great book. It is probably true that Thoreau left his cabin from time to time to walk into the town of Concord, one mile away, to see his family and others. Read More
Venki Ramakrishnan on Virtual You March 24, 2023 What are the prospects of simulating ourselves in a computer? At first sight, this sounds more science fiction than fact. Read More
Roland Betancourt on White: The History of a Color February 02, 2023 Moving away from those who might wish to find a universal symbolism or archetypal truth in a color, Michel Pastoureau’s The History of a Color series has sought to understand color as first and foremost a social phenomenon, one with historically grounded realities and effects. Read More
A look inside Running Out December 22, 2022 On the high plains of western Kansas, there is no clear line between water and second chances. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was in search of both when I turned my Prius off a two-lane highway and onto the washboard gravel that led back to the farm. Read More
A look inside Pandemic Politics October 11, 2022 The floor of the Bank of Oklahoma Center in Tulsa was awash in red, white, and blue. Eager supporters of President Donald Trump were holding signs, wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, and sporting T-shirts with expressions ranging from “Guns, God, and Trump” to “Make Liberals Cry Again.” Read More
A look inside Syllabus October 04, 2022 What really is a syllabus? Is it a tool or a manifesto? A machine or a plan? What are its limits? Its horizon? And who is it really for? And what would happen if you took the syllabus as seriously as you take the most serious forms of writing in your own discipline? Read More
Pinning our hopes on our machines September 12, 2022 One day in 1999 some children playing in the streets of Kalkaji, New Delhi, found a computer fixed in a wall that separated their poor neighborhood from a rich office district. It might have been a strange sight for these young residents of such disadvantaged circumstances, but within hours they had mastered some basic workings of the device and had begun surfing the web. Read More
A look inside Bedeviled September 06, 2022 The glass of science is half empty. Researchers across the globe are fixated on all that we do not know yet. It was the same one hundred years ago, and more than one hundred years before then too. Read More
A look inside The Secret Body July 27, 2022 Imagine yourself as an alien with an exceptionally powerful telescope trying to understand what happens on Earth. Read More
Welcome to Armageddon July 19, 2022 Each day throughout the year, the tour buses begin arriving at Megiddo soon after 9:00 a.m., disgorging fifty tourists at a time. By the time the site closes at 5:00 p.m., several dozen buses will have deposited hundreds of visitors. “Welcome to Armageddon,” the tour guides say, as they march their flocks up the steep incline and through the ancient city gate. Read More
