Articles

As a theorist, economist, politician, author, and co-founder of two transnational democratic and progressive movements, Yanis Varoufakis is a political Renaissance man who has captured some of the main social, political, and economic movements of our times. He catapulted to fame as Greek finance minister in 2015 where he displayed a strong opposing voice to European powers in a time of turbulent financial crisis. Varoufakis has continued to be a leading voice for change. In 2

I have not read all the tributes that have been made to John Hume since his death in 2020, but I doubt if many—perhaps any—of them have got to the heart of his real achievement, which was twofold. On the one hand, he prevented a settlement of Northern Ireland’s constitutional status that seemed to be a real possibility in the late seventies and early eighties on what might have been called ‘Unionist’ principles (though it could have resulted in the end, or radical decline, of

Introduction COVID-19 should not have struck us so unawares: similar viruses, SARS and MERS, had emerged within the last 20 years, and global pandemics had been widely discussed. So why were even rich countries so unprepared? It’s because politicians and the public have a local focus. They downplay the long-term and the global. They ignore Nate Silver’s maxim: ‘The unfamiliar is not the same as the improbable.’   Indeed, we’re in denial about a whole raft of newly emergent th

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to more than 176 million confirmed cases and over 3.8 million confirmed deaths. These numbers are likely dwarfed by the true rates of infection and death, which will remain unknown well into the future and will likely never be fully elucidated.[1] During this time, several countries have vied for the unhappy honour of being the worst affected by the pandemic, including Italy in early 2020, the United States through 2020 and early 2021, and most r

The below is adapted from Fakir Aijazuddin's 2021 book Imperial Curiosity: Early Views of Pakistan, 1845-1906 . Introduction   The nineteenth century was a period of imperialist expansion. Powerful countries in Europe like Great Britain, Germany, and Russia recognized the potential of countries in the near and far East—potential for travel, for tourism, for the advancement of scientific knowledge, for trade, and perhaps most important of all, resources with which to fuel thei

The recent upsurge of interest in the history of the British Empire has produced a wealth of literature that often presents empire and imperialism in a hegemonic light, couched in a dichotomy that sets the ‘oppressor’ against the ‘oppressed’, the ‘coloniser’ against the ‘colonised’, and so on. Underpinning fashionable postcolonial discourse, this binary terminology can obscure important nuances of political thought in its proper historical context, such as how prominent figur

Funding for the arts is quite frequently commended by political philosophers and political pundits—whom I shall call ‘edificatory perfectionists’—as a policy that can incline people to improve their ways of life by taking advantage of cultural opportunities.[1] By contrast, this article advocates such funding because it can promote the occurrence of outstanding achievements and thereby help to bring about the conditions under which every citizen can be warranted in feeling a

The months since my investiture have been remarkable in a number of ways. First and foremost, the continuing pandemic has changed the way my office engages with the public, replacing the in-person contact of what is traditionally a highly social role with virtual gatherings. At the same time, I find myself in a unique position to see and celebrate the innovation and strength with which individuals and organizations are responding to the challenges of the day. My goal, as we m

There are certain global issues that pay no attention to national borders or natural barriers: climate change; the COVID-19 pandemic; nuclear weapons proliferation; and a migration and refugee crisis. These challenges can only be met by collective action.   This demand binds every country to a multilateral system, but the current global framework is showing its age 76 years after the creation of the United Nations. To be sure, the network should keep out no one: even authorit

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. —William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1.5.167–68),...

When writing critically about the Russian avant-garde, one finds oneself inexorably drawn towards cosmism, as inexorably as the Earth...

Between December 1949 and February 1950, three shipments, carrying a total of 3,824 crates of artefacts and artworks from the Qing...

Many significant cultural objects have found uncomfortable homes in museums across the world.[1] They have been trapped behind glass,...

Introduction   Artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled prediction algorithms create multiple challenges to existing ideas about human agency and how the results of this agency may be governed. Weak or absent transparency in the operation of computational systems is changing the meaning of individual autonomy as AI enables vast numbers of new capabilities previously designed and implemented by humans.[1] The prevailing wisdom is that AI innovation is best driven by commercial mar

Abstract   In the wake of successive disappointing election performances by the UK Labour Party, commentators on the party’s centre-right...

Abstract Expressionism emerged amid a tense post-war climate, as a new genre of art that seemed so devoid of representational form or meaning that it could not be political. However, it was precisely this apparent apoliticality that made it so intensely political. Historiography on the topic has followed what I am inclined to call a ‘top-down’ trend. As outlined by Eva Cockcroft and Frances Stonor Saunders, those in power consciously used the art of the Abstract Expressionist

Postcards have long been linked to memory formation, sold primarily as ‘souvenirs’, a term itself deriving from the French verb souvenir...

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was set up in 1948 following the 1942 Beveridge report, a cross-party report which established its...

Russell Barnes is a Director and Producer for the documentary production company ClearStory. Clare Burns has worked in television...

What does it mean to defend the dead? To tend to the Black dead and dying: to tend to the Black person, to Black people, always living in the push toward our death? It means work. It is work: hard emotional, physical, and intellectual work that demands vigilant attendance to the needs of the dying, to ease their way, and also to the needs of the living. —Christina Sharpe[1]   A world divided into compartments, a motionless, Manicheistic world, a world of statues: the statue o

The origins and definition of the word ‘Americanitis’ are opaque at best. It is generally believed to have appeared in medical journals of the late nineteenth century, describing a particular nervous ailment found in the inhabitants of the United States of America. Thought to cause disease, heart attack, nervous exhaustion, and even insanity, Americanitis was seen as a serious threat to the American public. In fact, in 1925, Time  Magazine reported that Americanitis was respo

Introduction   Arendt’s account of modernity and The Human Condition  (1958)[1]   Opening the final section of The Human Condition...

Introduction   Canonical Penance in the early Church and the modern concept of prison, broadly construed, are both processes of...

In his seminal 1961 work The Destruction of the European Jews , Raul Hilberg proposed a thesis that sought to explain a perceived lack of...