Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education
The exploitation of contingent labor, a shrinking middle class, administrative elephantiasis: the turmoil in academia is a microcosm of American society as a whole.
May 4, 2011 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
Ode Ode
Blue jay vocalizes a clash on the color wheel, tulip heads removed one by one with a golf wedge. It’s something in the frequency. Expectations are high. There’s a reason they call it the nervous system. Someone in bed at 11 AM impersonates an empty house. Dear god. The sharpener’s dragged his cart from the shed. His bell rings out of the twelfth century to a neighborhood traumatizing its food with dull knives. A hammer creeps to the edge of a reno and peers over. Inching up its pole, a tentative flag. What is the source? Oh spring, my heart is in my mouth.
May 4, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Karen Solie
Margins of Modernism: A New Historicism in Art Margins of Modernism: A New Historicism in Art
In the paintings of Silke Otto-Knapp and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, there's an unending entanglement, and dialogue, between the present and the past.
May 4, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Shut Up and Play? Patriotism, Jock Culture and the Limits of Free Speech Shut Up and Play? Patriotism, Jock Culture and the Limits of Free Speech
Some athletes have dared to buck the patriotic trend, and in the process have learned a tough lesson about the limits of free speech in the jockocracy.
May 4, 2011 / Dave Zirin
Remembering the Decade of Destruction Since 9/11 Remembering the Decade of Destruction Since 9/11
For Jeremy Scahill, the killing of Osama bin Laden is an occasion not for celebration but rather for reflection on the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in the past t...
May 4, 2011 / Press Room
Russia’s Khimki Forest Threatened by Highway Project Russia’s Khimki Forest Threatened by Highway Project
Time is running out for activists hoping to stop the construction of a highway through an old growth forest outside of Moscow.
May 4, 2011 / Adam Federman
Remembering the Decade of Destruction Since 9/11 Remembering the Decade of Destruction Since 9/11
For Jeremy Scahill, the killing of Osama bin Laden is an occasion not for celebration but rather for reflection on the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in the past ten...
May 4, 2011 / The Tavis Smiley Show
Cheney Refuses to Admit He Was Wrong on Obama’s Approach to War on Terror Cheney Refuses to Admit He Was Wrong on Obama’s Approach to War on Terror
The former vice president made a mess after 9/11 by aligning the US with Pakistan and betting on a flawed approach to intelligence-gathering. Now he's trying to claim some cre...
May 4, 2011 / John Nichols
Slide Show: Iraqi Kurdistan’s Democratic Challenge Slide Show: Iraqi Kurdistan’s Democratic Challenge
The protests sweeping the Middle East have motivated thousands of Kurds from all walks of life to demonstrate in cities across Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region in northern Ira…
May 4, 2011 / Photo Essay / The Nation
Puzzle No. 1631 Puzzle No. 1631
This puzzle originally appeared in the May 8, 1976, issue.
May 4, 2011 / Frank W. Lewis