War

Professor R. Brian Ferguson teaches anthropology at Rutgers University in Newark and is an anthropological generalist on the subjects of war with publications on tribal warfare, ethnic conflict, the archeology of violence, and war in ancient states. He is a critic of theories purporting to explain war as a result of evolved propensities to kill.

Last Tuesday, Intelligence Squared sponsored a debate on whether or not President Barack Obama’s foreign policy signaled America’s decline as the driving force in global affairs: Dan Senor and Mort Zuckerman argued yes; Wesley Clark and Bernard-Henri Levy argued no.

War. What is it good for? Writing. PEN World Voices Festival lined up two war-themed panels on the afternoon of April 30, one featuring a bevy of novelists, the other filled with a squad of journalists. Politics remained resolutely to the side of the two discussions. No talk about whether the Iraq invasion was a good or bad idea, no discussion as to whether or not overthrowing oppressive regimes with violence is necessary. Panelists across sessions have been witness to conflict, and they have used it for inspiration in writing. But why? And how?

Rape. It's something most of us are uncomfortable discussing and an ugly part of our world. I could use a less obtrusive term. like "sexual assault" or "sexual violence," but I wont. It's a powerful word that we need to keep discussing because it's an issue that faces millions of people worldwide.

The title of this piece is ripped from Eric Alterman’s book of the same name (Basic, 2003), but it speaks to an issue that’s been gnawing at me for the past couple of weeks. And this is thanks to Danny Schechter, a.k.a., The News Dissector, and a recent discussion we had on his radio program (listen below). I wonder: where is the left, progressive media? Or, more acutely, what is the hydra-headed progressive media in this country, and how do liberals leverage its many assets and ambitions into a cohesive, message-making machine?

Audio interview with Jeremy Glick, the co-editor of Another World is Possible: Conversations in a Time of Terror, Professor of English at Hunter College, and currently working on a book on dramatic and operatic representations of the Haitian Revolution.

Further Resources:

Hunter College

One of my earliest memories of foreign affairs from my childhood was the brief war between Argentina and Great Britain over the small, wind-swept Falkland Islands in 1982. In response to the Argentine seizure of the islands, which they call Islas Malvinas and claim as their own, the British sent a naval flotilla halfway around the world to retake them. Without GPS, YouTube, broadband satellite uplinks or any of the other tools of modern journalism, I remember watching the progress of the British fleet on the nightly news as a red dot on a map slowly, very slowly, making its way down the length of the Atlantic Ocean towards the Falklands.

The Supreme Court of Canada handed down its ruling Friday in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian child soldier who was captured by US forces in Afghanistan during a fire fight that left one US medical officer dead. Instead of being returned to Canadian authorities, Khadr, then only 15, was sent to Guantanamo Bay where he suffered interrogation and threats of torture.