This piece on what “defunding the police” means is helpful in itself, and useful for background as well.

An interesting review, from a year ago of a volume of writings by Hannah Arendt that would have gone into the book on Karl Marx that she never completed.  I don't know why I didn't notice this review till now--it's pretty rich.

What an interesting work this is.  When I begin paying serious scholarly...

This is interesting about changes in US political views:

According to the 2019 Pew survey, 55 percent of white people over age 65 think too much attention is being paid to race and racial issues in America. So do 56 percent of white Americans who have a high school degree or less.

...

Again, along with the weather of today, pay attention to how the climate is changing.  I mean that metaphorically, but I think it's also literally true.

A nice backgrounder piece on the “anthropocene”.  

I try to stay somewhat at a distance from current events on this blog. I don't think I have any particular insight to offer on those events that is not available in many other places on the interwebs. What I think scholars can do, especially scholars who are not specialists on a particular topic, is continue to remind us of the larger dynamics and patterns that we see playing out in the stochastic chaos of our everyday.

It may seem strange to say, and it definitely reveals something about my disposition as it does my assessment of the state of the world, but I am an...