“The time,” once again, is “out of joint,” but the spirit of Ágnes Heller defies Hamlet’s bitter prediction about how quickly people forget. “[A] man’s memory may outlive him by six months. But he’s got to build churches for that to happen, or else he’ll have to put up with being forgotten…, like the hobby horse in the popular song” (Act III,2). While no builder of churches she, …
The Case of Osman Kavala It’s been more than four years since Osman Kavala’s detention. On October 18, 2017, the day he was taken into custody, we all thought that “they probably won’t arrest him” and on November 1, when he was arrested we said to each other “they probably won’t keep him for long.” Today, 10 December 2021, marks the 1501st day of Osman Kavala’s detention and …
The Case of Andrea Pető Andrea Pető is a Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University. She is an extremely well-published scholar (see her bio here), a distinguished historian who has also been a leader in the development of Gender Studies in Hungary and throughout Europe. Many readers of Democracy Seminar will be familiar with her work. Last week Professor Pető “made news” when …
Thoughts Anticipating the Democracy Seminar Webinar on Collaborating with Enemies, Opponents and Friends The Democracy Seminar has been very active the past few months, considering global authoritarian developments and exploring the democratic responses to the developments. We have also been polishing our new platform, in anticipation of the official launch of the platform on December 3rd. Here are my introductory thoughts on the topic of our launch event, …
Reflections on the Pandemic, Global Warming, Democracy, and the Social Condition On September 12, 2021, I delivered the keynote lecture at the Graduate School for Social Research Summer School, in Wierzba, Poland. The response to the lecture has convinced me that I should share it with my colleagues and the public in Democracy Seminar. J.C.G. God is not dead. The specter of Communism, the thousand-year Reich, and the …
The future of democracy in the United States is in danger. [This open letter was originally published simultaneously by The Bulwark and the New Republic.] We are writers, academics, and political activists who have long disagreed about many things. Some of us are Democrats and others Republicans. Some identify with the left, some with the right, and some with neither. We have disagreed in the past, and we hope to be …
While not forgetting his disastrous presidency It has been quite a while since I paid much attention to George W. Bush. And I had no particular interest in what he might have to say on the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. There has been enough sacralization of a disaster that should never have led the country to such destructive, wasteful, and immoral war-making. And …
Afghan Refugees Trapped at Borders Thirty-two Afghan refugees have been trapped at gunpoint for four weeks now by the Polish border guards, military and police without clean water nor access to a doctor on the border with Belarus in Usnarz Górny. Moreover, the Polish state has introduced a state of emergency on the border against the refugees. Why is this singular situation on the Polish-Belarussian border of such …
Katarzyna Krzyżanowska talks with Robert Talisse, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at the Vanderbilt University in Nashville, on epistemology of democracy. The conversation largely draws on Talisse’s recently published book “Sustaining Democracy”. Katarzyna Krzyżanowska: A provocative question for the beginning: why write a book on the need to sustain democracy at all? Do you think that democracy is in such a crisis that we need to go back …
That blue-skied morning I was on a New Jersey train on my way to teach a morning class at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. As a mindless professor, absorbed in my class preparation, I missed all the clear signs around me that something big was happening, until the moment when entering the office of my department a radio blared out, “Oh my God, the tower …
