The headlines that make breaking news in the art world most often concern a piece’s financial worth, which nearly always means how much a private collector paid for it. But for most of us, the value of art has very little to do with a dollar amount. Rather, art provides an avenue to a diverse range of critical discussions, evokes …
Nearly 80 years after engineers programmed the first electronic computers, most of us still regard machines as supremely rational collections of electrical circuits, speaking in binary “1”s and “0”s. It can be easy to forget that software, the digital instructions that tell computers how to do their jobs, springs from the minds of living, breathing people. And these coders imbue …
As long as there have been poems, there have been political poems: verses, intended to be heard aloud, meant to sway opinion and inspire action. Poetry played a crucial role in the Athenian democracy of ancient Greece; throughout American history, poet luminaries such as Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou have employed the power of the pen to influence …
The German sociologist Max Weber once described the regularity of public administration as protection against arbitrariness, since everyone has to play by the same rational rules. But does this definition still hold up today, with rising populism on both sides of the Atlantic targeting public administration? What is the role of bureaucracy when the legitimacy of electoral processes is constantly …
This event is generously sponsored by Pedram Salimpour.
In Iran, women have stood as a first line of opposition against government repression for at least 150 years, advocating for social and economic equality, pushing back against discriminatory Islamist edicts, and fighting for a new vision of politics. Today, young women are pouring into Iranian streets again, using phones and social media …
Everybody loves a debut novel. The thrill of discovering a new literary voice, the culmination of years of solitary work, and the possibility of so much more to come will always be catnip to publishers, reviewers, and of course, readers. First-time novelists often pour much of themselves and their family experiences into these works—lending a particular richness and depth. Emerging …
