Alien, 20th Century Fox, 1979 by Norah Campbell and Mike Saren Recent works have explored the concept of posthumanism as a radical decentring of the human, humanism and the humanities in the wake of the complexificaiton of technology and systems, and new insight into nonhuman life (Pettman, 2011; Wolfe, 2009). In this article, we argue…
Read MoreBen Heine by Biagio Bossone In the years leading up to the global crisis, the IMF routinely failed to detect the vulnerabilities that brought the global economy to its knees – even once the turmoil had begun. How could the organisation mandated to oversee international finance stability have been so blind? Here one of the…
Read MoreThe term “social contract” has a deep history in political theory…
Read Moreby Edith Wharton I Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four winters of lunching…
Read Moreby Nathaniel Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with…
Read Moreby F. Scott Fitzgerald I. John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades—a small town on the Mississippi River—for several generations. John’s father had held the amateur golf championship through many a heated contest; Mrs. Unger was known “from hot-box to hot-bed,” as the local phrase went, for her…
Read Moreby Martin Gilman From my perch in Moscow, the inimitable words of Yogi Berra come to mind as I watch the economic turmoil in Ireland and the contagion effects on others that constitute the soft underside of the eurozone currency area. The sense of déjà vu is palpable. No, I am not thinking about Greece…
Read Moreby Paul Krugman Debt is the crux of advanced economies’ current policy debates. Some argue for fiscal expansion to avoid recession and deflation. Others claim that you can’t solve a debt-created problem with more debt. This column explains the core logic of a new model by Eggertsson and Krugman in which debt shocks and policy…
Read MoreFrom McSweeney’s: My most advanced move towards becoming an escort however happened when I met Paul. We met over emails and texts on Craigslist. Paul was looking to audition for porn. He needed a partner to showcase his skills on camera. He would pay $500 for an hour’s work. I could make my weekly pay…
Read MoreFrom American Scientist: Biological engineering is nothing new. “Biology is technology,” Carlson declares on the opening page; indeed, he says, “Biology is the oldest technology.” Human beings coevolved with domesticated plants and animals, and one could argue that consciously manipulating other species for our own ends is one of the things that makes humans unique.…
Read MoreThe discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would pose real problems for our anthrocentric religions, argues Paul Davies: All the world’s major religions were founded in a pre-scientific era. The sacred texts and the various creation myths were formulated long before humans had a good understanding of the natural world or the nature…
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