Memory care makes final introductions to residents whose names have slipped away at the slightest pressure, evanescent syllables for those who will not be here long, mere bubbles in a froth of foam, more transient than resident, some transitioning, not to another gender, but to another state of being altogether. Are you in the bathtub?…
Reconstituted voices, scraps of cloud caught in branches, the morning campfire of Pu-erh tea or mown hay of white peony, an old man’s blaser hanging on its peg, the human funk of toasted cumin seeds, oak burnt to ashes, cinerulent fox fur, crapy grape leaves in late November, a shirred old pumpkin, the soap and…
Every fall I teach a first-year seminar called “Why College? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” On the first day of class I present a list of possible purposes for college and ask students to rank them. “Finding your passion” and “changing the world” are always the top vote-getters, because that is the story we tell about…
“In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign.” So said President Donald Trump in his inaugural speech to the United Nations in September 2017. “In foreign affairs, we are renewing this founding principle of sovereignty. Our government’s first duty is to its people, to our citizens… As President of the…
I contemplate a bird. In fact it is a photo of a bird, many times larger than life, hanging on the wall of a café. I’ve never had a chance to scrutinize a bird so carefully before. After I finish admiring its beauty, I turn my attention to its claws, which are pointed and hard,…
The great British historian E. P. Thompson once remarked that “India is not an important country, but perhaps the most important country for the future of the world. Here is a country that merits no one’s condescension. All the convergent influences of the world run through this society: Hindu, Moslem, Christian, secular; Stalinist, liberal, Maoist,…
“She is brown,” I said to you, less in annoyance than wonder when she flew past us with a certain flamboyance not over but under our gate to settle down into the tree beside her mate. “But he is black,” you replied, “and the name is his.” “As it always is,” I poked. “I was…
In that instant, dear daughter, when they flashed like cupid’s arrow through the current of saltwater where you splashed, more narrow and more terse than any gleam, I thought I felt within my gut love’s old curse entering the dream — that through no fault of yours but beauty, fresh as it is fierce, you…
A ladybird, or ladybug (call it what you will) has crept onto my pillowcase — this one so small it can hardly be seen. Except I do see it; it is marking the place where I slept like a bloodstain. You shrug, tell me it’s good luck, give our duvet a perfunctory sweep. But I…
after Petrarch In August, out on the veranda, it is not uncommon for a moth to fly into the light and singe its wings to dust. The lantern is so beautiful — it must. I used to watch them burn and wonder why, before I came to understand the bit about desire, how there’s no…
When I was eleven years old, reading Robert K. Massie’s Nicolas and Alexandra, I encountered the longest word I had ever seen: counterrevolutionaries. It muscled out most other words in the line, squatting nigh unpronounceably, like an undigestible bolus or sedimentary rock, all prefix and suffix. Even though it had no sensuality or visual aspect…
Democratic theory, like democracy itself, comes in various shapes and sizes. There are today two leading theories of democratic legitimacy. Realist theorists such as Joseph Schumpeter and Robert Dahl focus on actual political institutions such as voting, competitive elections, and party elites. These are regarded as not only the necessary but also the sufficient conditions…
