A review of The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s by Ellen Schrecker. University of Chicago Press, 616 pages (December 2021). The 1960s were the tipping point of postwar American history at which the conservativism of the previous decade evolved into an era of growing liberal consensus. Historian James
Next week, I am taking my university to court. To my knowledge, it is the first time an academic institution has been forced, at trial, to justify why it prioritises trans rights over women’s rights. The other party in the case is the University of Bristol, which one might
In 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed that illustrated the traditional conception of the public library. Under the headline, To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library, sociologist Eric Klinenberg wrote: For children and teenagers, libraries help instill an ethic of responsibility, to themselves and to their neighbors,
Respect for reason has waxed and waned throughout history. Today, its tide is receding. University professors resign in frustration from what were once our bastions of rationality. Increasingly, the barbarians are not merely at the gates, but running the show in a vast swathe of humanities departments. After decades of
Maus was important to my life, but there's nothing wrong with protecting kids from encountering the world’s worst horrors before they are old enough to understand them.
Activists have discovered that the best form of defence is attack.
Over the last four weeks, we have witnessed an unprecedented amount of press coverage and social media chatter surrounding the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s efforts to discourage artists and entertainers from participating in the 2022 Sydney Arts Festival, one of the premiere annual festivals in Australia. The
My career as a political essayist began 13 years ago. I had been asked by a left-wing Canadian website to expand on my views about a then-ongoing constitutional crisis—and explain why public opinion had turned so sharply in favour of then-prime minister Stephen Harper, even among supporters of parties
Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to psychology professor Christopher J. Ferguson about his newly published academic paper, Are Orcs Racist? Dungeons and Dragons, Ethnocentrism, Anxiety, and the Depiction of ‘Evil’ Monsters.
Few novels become institutions, to have departments rigged up around them, whole constituencies and spheres of scholarship, as works of lifelong study, fascination and confusion. Ulysses, whose publication centenary will be observed on February 2nd, is one such book. Like Marx’s Kapital, Joyce’s door-stopping opus has kept academics
Dear Readers, We have an eclectic range of pieces in store for you this week. If you're after an engrossing long-read, S. Stiles's harrowing narrative of her son’s battle with encephalitis—chronically misdiagnosed as autism—is not to be missed. We also have essays on
The model of life they imagine is based on the myth of an all-purpose education designed by experts to allow every child to choose any future they like.
The show frankly acknowledges issues frequently haunting persons on the autism spectrum.
In the early days of World War Two, George Orwell published a marvelous essay entitled “England Your England.” With the Luftwaffe in the skies above London laying waste to the city, Orwell observed a peculiarly contemptible trait of the English intelligentsia. In a word, this portion of the national elite
The opposition to nuclear energy is not the only way in which mainstream environmentalists have, with the best of intentions, hurt the cause of climate action.