Asked towards the latter part of his life how he came to define his interest in a series of diverse problématiques, Michel Foucault responded by stating that he was driven by a very basic and fundamental question—the desire to comprehend what is happening around us, to inquire, “What...
CHALMERS JOHNSON “Can Any Administration Reverse the United States’ Downward Spiral?” In his speech to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama called the forthcoming presidential election a “defining moment” in this country’s history. It is conceivable that he...
JUSTIN ROGERS-COOPER The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan (2008) Just How Stupid Are We? by Rick Shenkman (2008) Red State Blue State Rich State Poor State by Andrew Gelman (2008) Recent stories of America’s relatively abrupt fall from “exceptionalism” typically trace the...
Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton. At The New Museum (through January 11). One must be careful with how one approaches the work of Elizabeth Peyton. It is too easy to dismiss her, to fault her for her own seemingly bottomless devotion to the seductions of youth and beauty as Sarah Valdez did...
John Adams, Doctor Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera The idea to do an opera about the atomic bomb was the brainchild of Pamela Rosenberg, who in 2002 was the politically-minded director of the San Francisco Opera. The genesis of the bomb’s music, however, came much earlier, in a...
