Essay Einstein Papers Project鈥檚 newest volume: Einstein wrestles with politics and physics, 1929鈥1930 October 16, 2024 Since 1987 the Einstein Papers Project, based at Caltech, has been releasing a volume of Einstein's correspondence and papers approximately every three years. Volume 17 finds Einstein living mainly in Berlin, though traveling throughout Europe to attend conferences and receive honorary degrees. Read More
Essay Einstein Papers Project鈥檚 editors鈥 reflections on The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 17 October 16, 2024 Josh Eisenthal, EPP Editor, reflects on Einstein's second meeting with Rabindranath Tagore. Read More
Essay Deep time and the Civil War dead October 15, 2024 In rocky tombs, formed millions of years before Gettysburg, rested the fossilized remains of a riotous wonder of life that had cavorted and gnashed its way through the continent鈥檚 primordial seas and landscapes. This lost world had been unearthed piecemeal in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. Read More
Interview Paul Reitter and Paul North on Karl Marx鈥檚 Capital October 08, 2024 Paul Reitter and Paul North discuss the creation, reception, and future of 鈥淐apital.鈥 Read More
Essay Up from feudalism: the Black American liberal tradition October 03, 2024 What did it mean to be an enlightened 鈥渓iberal鈥 in the United States before the twentieth century? What鈥檚 race got to do with it? Read More
Essay Narrative images, sacred places September 30, 2024 Close inspection of a "kalamkari" shows the work is exemplary of early modern temple paintings, which in form and subject mirror the concentric enclosing walls of the Hindu temple. Read More
Essay Ungoverning: an unfamiliar name for an unfamiliar danger September 30, 2024 The idea that those entrusted with responsibility for governing a democracy would intentionally make the state less capable鈥攄egrading its ability to collect taxes, to deliver mail, to conduct diplomacy, to prosecute violations of civil rights鈥攊s almost unthinkable. We call this 鈥渦ngoverning.鈥 Read More
Essay Numbing memories September 23, 2024 For over a quarter century, many millions in the US have captured moments of their daily lives and shared them online, from the mildly amusing and banal to the shocking and painful. Read More
Essay The right way to drink yerba mate September 18, 2024 The first time someone from North America tries yerba mate in the traditional style, with a gourd or cattle horn stuffed with smokey green leaves and the metal drinking straw, we often break one of the unwritten rules of the South American drink. Read More
Essay Readers, receipts, and the history of empire September 16, 2024 As long as there have been documents, there have been functional archives. In the nineteenth century, a period of immense imperial expansion, the formation of the functional archive was tightly tied to the ideological project of empire building. Read More
Essay Charm is everywhere and it defines our contemporary politics September 12, 2024 Personality rules our politics. We pay way more attention to individual politicians, than to policies, institutions, or abstract values. Read More
Essay Augustine and slavery September 04, 2024 Augustine is America鈥檚 public theologian again. Digging deeper into Augustine鈥檚 thought reveals why Augustinian Christian Nationalism is unviable. Read More
Essay Charting change in a life鈥檚 journey through skills September 03, 2024 When my wonderful colleagues asked me to take on leadership of our budding聽Skills for Scholars series alongside the eminent former PUP director and editor-at-large, Peter Dougherty, I wanted to figure out how to find my philosophical mind within the universe of practical guides. It isn鈥檛 just that I was leaving my philosophical fun house, it was a venture out into an unfamiliar and unchartered territory. Read More
Essay Jews, Europe, and the origins of antisemitism: A new approach August 23, 2024 The Jews鈥攔eal and imagined鈥攕o challenged the Christian majority that it became a society that was religiously and culturally antisemitic in new ways between 800 and 1500. Their new self-understanding remained part of different groups鈥 cultural identity down to the time of the Holocaust and beyond to the present day. Read More
Interview Ben A. Minteer and Jonathan B. Losos on The Heart of the Wild August 21, 2024 The Heart of the Wild brings together some of today鈥檚 leading scientists, humanists, and nature writers to offer a thought-provoking meditation on the urgency of learning about and experiencing our wild places in an age of rapidly expanding human impacts. Read More