Essay The right way to drink yerba mate September 18, 2024 The first time someone from North America tries yerba mate in the traditional style, with a gourd or cattle horn stuffed with smokey green leaves and the metal drinking straw, we often break one of the unwritten rules of the South American drink. Read More
Reading List Smart books for humans on artificial intelligence September 17, 2024 AI’s involvement in everyday life is ever-evolving, with significant implications for how we work, live, and traverse fields from education to healthcare. As this powerful technology is incorporated into more services and products that we rely upon, here are some books that can help us to embrace human agency and navigate this new digital age. Read More
Video Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor on AI Snake Oil September 17, 2024 Confused about AI and worried about what it means for your future and the future of the world? You’re not alone. In these videos, Arvind and Sayash address common questions about AI. Read More
Essay Readers, receipts, and the history of empire September 16, 2024 As long as there have been documents, there have been functional archives. In the nineteenth century, a period of immense imperial expansion, the formation of the functional archive was tightly tied to the ideological project of empire building. Read More
Essay Charm is everywhere and it defines our contemporary politics September 12, 2024 Personality rules our politics. We pay way more attention to individual politicians, than to policies, institutions, or abstract values. Read More
Podcast Class Dismissed September 12, 2024 Elite colleges are boasting unprecedented numbers with respect to diversity, with some schools admitting their first majority-minority classes. Read More
Essay Augustine and slavery September 04, 2024 Augustine is America’s public theologian again. Digging deeper into Augustine’s thought reveals why Augustinian Christian Nationalism is unviable. Read More
Essay Charting change in a life’s journey through skills September 03, 2024 When my wonderful colleagues asked me to take on leadership of our budding Skills for Scholars series alongside the eminent former PUP director and editor-at-large, Peter Dougherty, I wanted to figure out how to find my philosophical mind within the universe of practical guides. It isn’t just that I was leaving my philosophical fun house, it was a venture out into an unfamiliar and unchartered territory. Read More
Essay Jews, Europe, and the origins of antisemitism: A new approach August 23, 2024 The Jews—real and imagined—so challenged the Christian majority that it became a society that was religiously and culturally antisemitic in new ways between 800 and 1500. Their new self-understanding remained part of different groups’ cultural identity down to the time of the Holocaust and beyond to the present day. Read More
Interview Ben A. Minteer and Jonathan B. Losos on The Heart of the Wild August 21, 2024 The Heart of the Wild brings together some of today’s leading scientists, humanists, and nature writers to offer a thought-provoking meditation on the urgency of learning about and experiencing our wild places in an age of rapidly expanding human impacts. Read More
Podcast Reading Herzl in Beirut August 15, 2024 In September 1982, the Israeli military invaded West Beirut and Israel-allied Lebanese militiamen massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Read More
Essay Forbidden texts August 12, 2024 When was the last time you read a forbidden text? Not forbidden in some other time and place, but here and now, a text that, were it discovered in your possession, might land you in prison? Read More
Podcast Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics August 12, 2024 Politics is a site of performance, and contemporary politicians often perform the role of a regular person—perhaps someone we would like to have a beer with. Read More
Podcast Privileging Place August 10, 2024 Politics is a site of performance, and contemporary politicians often perform the role of a regular person—perhaps someone we would like to have a beer with. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Class Dismissed August 09, 2024 Elite colleges are boasting unprecedented numbers with respect to diversity, with some schools admitting their first majority-minority classes. Read More
