All articles by this author
September 20, 2021
Revising Said’s “out of place” self-image is a project worth pursuing further
Although Brennan’s book prioritizes Said’s English-department dramas, his longstanding anti-militarism is arguably at least as interesting a thread to follow, and one that seems destined to stay interesting longer.
“What’s the difference between a baby and an onion? No one cries when you chop up the baby.”
Why does writing well about atrocity matter? Because the history of the world, a history that is morally unimaginable without atrocity, needs to be written, rewritten, well written. To know what really happened, to know what it really felt like, we need more sentences that are capable of opening readers to events so horrible that the senses and the memory close down; sentences that open multiple perspectives on those atrocities, even if they seem to allow for only one perspective — sentences that do all this without losing their hold on logic and grammar and, for that matter, their rhythm
March 8, 2018
Events without a subject are random. But subjects are just as artificial as endings.
Any debt to the living takes precedence over any debt to the dead.
November 25, 2015
An irresponsible speculation
A week after the Paris attacks of November 13th, border controls have been tightened not only in France and Belgium, but in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia. The Schengen agreement, which allows passport-free passage through twenty-six nations, may soon be considered a luxury Europe cannot afford.
January 9, 2014
Let me say it again: the kind of diversity I wanted him to address but didn’t find in his book is economic diversity.
In India, the peasantry was not disappearing. Archaism remained culturally dominant across the board.
Badiou informed Balibar that he, Balibar, was a reformist. “And you, monsieur,” Balibar replied, “are a theologian.”
January 24, 2011
What would it look like from a comparative perspective that takes colonialism too with proper gravity?
There’s no way around it: Commonwealth is an irritating book.
August 4, 2009
So once upon a time there was an enchanted world and now it’s gone. Or is it?
July 5, 2007
Among the things I will miss most about Richard Rorty is his hopefulness—an intelligent and self-correcting hopefulness.
