There can be bureaucracy without accountability, but can there be accountability without bureaucracy?… Read the rest
The silence of the left
Apr 3rd, 2007 11:36 am | By Ophelia BensonIf you get tired of Butler and Spivak – this is better.
… Read the restThe most astute argument presented by Postel is his revelatory account of how Western leftists, by prioritising their own opposition to American imperialism, have abandoned Iranian liberals in their fight for freedom and democracy. Postel vehemently renounces the argument that support for pro-democracy interests in Iran somehow amounts to supporting the neo-conservative agenda. He presents engaging ideas as to how Iranian liberals have accomplished this very task. He relates in detail how Iranian human rights activists such as Akbar Ganji shun any contact with the United States government when visiting the country and focus solely on engaging with scholars, human rights organisations and civil society groups. Postel
Knowing everything is easy and fun
Apr 3rd, 2007 10:53 am | By Ophelia BensonI wish I could have been here. I’m excited that I can listen or watch now (although I’m not absolutely sure that I ever will, somehow), but that’s not quite the same.
… Read the restThe conference was organized by graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature at UC Irvine. Participants were invited to address the term “state” and to consider the effect of the “global” on discourses of knowledge and power, literary analysis, and theories of subjectivity. The conference sought to reconceptualize the global by delineating states of sentiment, desire, and affect, and examining their deployment on – or relation to – the global scene of political and economic states. In their dialogue, Butler and Spivak discuss alternative subjectivities and
Mitigation
Apr 2nd, 2007 4:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo, like the pope with his fond references to hell and eternal punishment, that German judge made some things clear.
… Read the rest[T]he case brought before Frankfurt’s family court was that of a 26-year-old German woman of Moroccan origin who was terrified of her violent Moroccan husband, a man who had continued to threaten her despite having been ordered to stay away by the authorities. He had beaten his wife and he had allegedly threatened to kill her…According to the judge, there was no evidence of “an unreasonable hardship” that would make it necessary to dissolve the marriage immediately. Instead, the judge argued, the woman should have “expected” that her husband, who had grown up in a country influenced by Islamic
André Glucksmann’s Lifetime of Indignation
Apr 2nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘There are many guardians of sleep. The thinker’s task is to fight against them.’… Read the rest
Paving the Way for a Muslim Parallel Society
Apr 2nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRulings help create a parallel Muslim world in Germany that is welcoming to Islamic fundamentalists.… Read the rest
A Breathtakingly Manipulative Speech
Apr 2nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe church is used to having privilege, and sees removal of privilege as an attack on its freedom.… Read the rest
Sister of ‘Honour’ Killing Victim Threatened
Apr 2nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSister told jurors she was beaten, called a whore, accused of being too Westernised.… Read the rest
Mitchell Cohen on John Bowen on the Hijab
Apr 2nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBowen doesn’t pose the questions adequately.… Read the rest
La vie en rose
Apr 1st, 2007 2:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh, rats, there go my dreams of being part of a Group. Julian is such a killjoy.
Apparently, I am “a member of a group of freelance intellectuals who gather round The Philosophers’ Magazine and live by their pens.” Sounds very glamorous, in a bohemian kind of way. If you said three people who sit alone in front of computers all day in their underwear, it wouldn’t have quite the same ring.
Oh, is that all it is? How sad. I thought it was more than that. I had this pleasing, albeit vague, idea of a nice populous crowd of freelance intellectuals all gathered around TPM thinking. I admit I couldn’t have told you who they were if you’d … Read the rest
Raymond Tallis Lecture mp3
Apr 1st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA stirring response to everyone who thinks medicine is a scam.… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre on Consumer Drug Advertizing
Apr 1st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDoctors are trained to spot bullshit, consumers not so much.… Read the rest
So, Jesus, About Your Mother
Apr 1st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMo is so insensitive sometimes.… Read the rest
Jesus and Mo on Sexual Orientation Regulations
Apr 1st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSome of their best friends.… Read the rest
Quantum Feminism Found at U of Toronto!
Apr 1st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonQuantum feminisms do not inhabit a network; they are the network of feminist discourse in virtual space.… Read the rest
Slavoj Žižek and Jerry Cohen at the ICA
Apr 1st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Sometimes the wrong question being asked is part of the problem.’… Read the rest
Poll: US Drowning in Ignorance
Apr 1st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson48% rejects evolution; 34% of college graduates say they accept Biblical account of creation as fact.… Read the rest
Another poll
Apr 1st, 2007 10:10 am | By Ophelia BensonThis is, not surprisingly, depressing stuff (not surprisingly because of the subject matter and the source). It’s depressing not just because of the substance but also because of the patronizing stupidity of the writing – the cuddly babytalk, the low (the almost non-existent) expectations.
Nine in 10 (91 percent) of American adults say they believe in God and almost as many (87 percent) say they identify with a specific religion. Christians far outnumber members of any other faith in the country, with 82 percent of the poll’s respondents identifying themselves as such. Another 5 percent say they follow a non-Christian faith, such as Judaism or Islam.
Note the lightning-fast shift from ‘a specific religion’ to the now more usual familiar … Read the rest
The hunter hunted
Apr 1st, 2007 2:25 am | By Ophelia BensonI didn’t know this – Zimbardo discovered that he’d become a subject of his own experiment. Read the whole thing; it’s fascinating.
… Read the restMissing from the body of social-science research at the time was the direct confrontation of good versus evil, of good people pitted against the forces inherent in bad situations…Thus in 1971 was born the Stanford prison experiment, more akin to Greek drama than to university psychology study. I wanted to know who wins — good people or an evil situation — when they were brought into direct confrontation…Suddenly the guards perceived the prisoners as “dangerous”; they had to be dealt with harshly to demonstrate who was boss and who was powerless. At first, guard abuses were retaliation for