What is Jewish hope? July 31, 2020 How, in a global pandemic, can we look forward to the future with hope? The economic and political landscape that COVID-19 will leave in its wake is alarmingly uncertain. Read More
A paean to the paperback July 30, 2020 My passion for paperbacks began back in the year 2000 with my first job in book publishing. Prior to that, as a philosophy graduate student, I was enamored of finding hardback editions, ideally jacketed, of the philosophers whose works I was reading. Read More
Forgiveness works: What can we learn from a victim‑centered justice system July 27, 2020 As many of us march in the streets or watch televised protests, we are forced to acknowledge the brutalities of our punitive justice system all across the United States. Read More
A look inside Just Giving July 24, 2020 “Your fortune is rolling up, rolling up like an avalanche! You must keep up with it! You must distribute it faster than it grows! If you do not, it will crush you, and your children, and your children’s children!” So wrote Frederick Gates to sixty-seven-year-old John D. Rockefeller in 1906. Read More
By Design | Karen Siatras on designing for Humboldt July 20, 2020 Karen Siatras is a graphic designer in SAAM’s Publications office. For her most recent project, the massive exhibition catalogue that accompanies Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture, she created special decorative letters at the start of each chapter in the book. Read More
A highland roadside: Verge and woodland July 17, 2020 Even better than a shady bank scattered with the fresh June fronds of Beech Fern Phegopteris connectilis interwoven with bluebells, stitchwort, red campion and spikes of Wood Horsetail Equisetum sylvaticum is a roadside verge with thousands of Beech Fern fronds, stretching as far ahead as you can see and spilling down the bank into the woodland alongside. Read More
Eva Rosen on The Voucher Promise July 15, 2020 Housing vouchers are a cornerstone of US federal housing policy, offering aid to more than two million households. Vouchers are meant to provide the poor with increased choice in the private rental marketplace, enabling access to safe neighborhoods with good schools and higher-paying jobs. But do they? Read More
Listen in: Finding humanity through fairy tales July 14, 2020 Ever since I began a collaboration with Princeton University Press in 2008 to found the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series, almost all the books we have published have been somewhat political but not didactic. Read More
The Black man at Lincoln’s feet: Archer Alexander and the problem of emancipation July 13, 2020 The Emancipation Memorial sits imprisoned in a cage in Washington’s Lincoln Park, waiting to hear whether it will be exiled or set free. The fate of its replica in Boston is also hanging in the balance, as a petition for its removal has been signed by thousands. Read More
Promised Words July 10, 2020 In the early morning, before my 2-year-old and 7-year-old wake up, I sneak down the creaky stairs, swinging slightly on the bannisters to keep my weight from announcing my descent. My younger child seems to have impossibly sensitive hearing, and so I crunch my granola on the couch as quietly as possible, while I begin work-related email and reading. Read More
The puzzle of our future humanity: One mathematician’s perspective July 08, 2020 While completing this piece, the world came together in shared sadness, pain, and grief. This time has been an awakening for some and a reminder for others of the injustice all around us and its long and ugly legacy. Read More
Hips don’t lie: The American incognitum July 07, 2020 While the Smithsonian American Art Museum rarely houses fossil remains, an amazing specimen, the original “Peale Mastodon” skeleton, is part of the upcoming exhibition Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture. Read More
Naomi Oreskes: Feminist science is better science July 06, 2020 American public life is rife with questions of scientific judgment. Does red meat really cause cancers and heart disease, or are such fears overblown? How can scientists tell that climate change is occurring and what the effects of global warming might be? Read More
Angèle Christin on Metrics at Work July 05, 2020 During the COVID-19 pandemic more than ever, digital platforms and news websites have become a lifeline for information and interaction for people isolated from face-to-face contact. Angèle Christin goes behind the scenes of our screens, analyzing how news production changed as it moved online. Read More
Adam Sutcliffe on What Are Jews For? July 02, 2020 What is the purpose of Jews in the world? The Bible singles out the Jews as God’s “chosen people,” but the significance of this special status has been understood in many different ways over the centuries. Read More