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Paranoid states Like viruses, conspiracy theories travel around the globe. But are they always unhealthy? By David Hutt New Humanist 2nd June 2021 Anti-American propaganda at the former US embassy, Tehran In 1964, the American historian Richard J. Hofstadter altered the way we think about conspiracy theories with his famous essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”. For Hofstadter, one of..

william Davies New Left Review March/April, 2021 In the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, critical theorists paid renewed attention to what Charles Taylor famously called ‘the politics of recognition’.footnote1 The demand for recognition, Taylor suggested, was linked to modern notions of identity—a person’s understanding of their fundamental defining characteristics, of who they are. Sin..

European ideas of African illiteracy are persistent, prejudiced and, as the story of Libyc script shows, entirely wrong D. Vance Smith Aeon 17 June, 2021 D Vance Smith is a medievalist and Old Dominion Professor in the Department of English at Princeton University. His books include The Book of the Incipit (2001); Arts of Possession (2003); and Arts of Dying: Literature and Finitude in Medieval ..

Mark Bauerlein First Things June 2021 After Harold Bloom died in ­October 2019, E. D. Hirsch told a story from the early 1960s, when they were assistant professors of English at Yale. They both had lived not far from campus, and Hirsch frequently spotted Bloom walking past his house and joined him for a stroll to the office. They had much to discuss about department matters, and they shared a sp..

How Milman Parry proved that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not written by a lone genius. By Adam Kirsch Newyorker June 7, 2021 Recording Yugoslav bards, Milman Parry established epic’s oral origins.Illustration by Julie Benbassat he Western tradition has never been more appealingly portrayed than in Rembrandt’s 1653 painting “Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.” Whether you stand in front of it at ..

Communists and fascists are very often the same unpleasant people, wrote Thomas Mann—literary champion of the German bourgeois. He was right. by David Mikics Tablet June 03, 2021 Ullstein Bild via Getty Images “Germany declared war on Russia. Swimming lesson in the afternoon,” Franz Kafka famously wrote in his diary on Aug. 2, 1914. Thomas Mann couldn’t have read Kafka’s words, but during his wa..

Humanism did not replace Scholasticism, nor is it clear that ideas like the Renaissance help us understand history at all Henrik Lagerlund Aeon 31 May, 2021 Henrik Lagerlund is professor of the history of philosophy at Stockholm University and a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy in Canada. He is series editor of Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind (2002-); editor-in-chief of ..

Should we censor art? Tearing down sexist paintings or racist monuments raises as many problems as it resolves. There’s a better way to combat hate Daisy Dixon Aeon 27 May, 2021 Daisy Dixon is a research fellow in philosophy and art at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, and a practising artist. In 1970, Allen Jones exhibited Hatstand, Table, and Chair: three sculptures of women wearing fetish ..

All is Orwell by Gerald Frost The New Criterion Features June 2021 On George Orwell in Spain. By my unscientific count, more words have been written about George Orwell than any other writer in the English language besides Dickens and Shakespeare. But since the flow of publications about Orwell continues unabated, it may only be a matter of time before he overtakes both. To date, there are at le..

Against public philosophy For Leo Strauss, public life was muddied by opinion and persecution, so philosophers should shield their work from view Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft Aeon 20 May 2021 Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft is a writer and historian. He is the author of Thinking in Public: Strauss, Levinas, Arendt (2016) and Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food (2019). In his essay ‘Persecution..