Debates

Allegory, particularly in the form of personification, was one of the most important forms through which late Medieval society attempted to understand itself. And few literary texts display the ways …
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Today the classical idea that people merit solicitude simply in virtue of being human – or, more succinctly, that bare humanity is morally important – is on the defensive. It …
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Imagine you are walking through the woods with a hunting rifle and come upon a clearing where two terrorists with large swords are about to cut the heads off ten …
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This article was co-authored with Anna Charlton.

We are going to defend what may appear to be a controversial position: that our moral rejection of meat, dairy, eggs, and all …
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Legions of cultural critics are focusing the beam of Marxist-inflected critical theory on the mass-cultural phenomenon of zombies. And what a phenomenon they have become. Zombies—the rambling, post-apocalyptic, multitudinous variety, …
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Today, we are experiencing a global food crisis. Close to one billion people have to cope with hunger, and many more have to deal not only with the malnutrition that …
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“Is Theory Critical?” was a question recently put to some of us publicly. I myself interpreted this question institutionally and practically: how can we ask for continued funding when the …
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What does it mean to love the earth, this rich network of relationality that sustains earthlings, as our shared home? In Darwinian terms, love is the social instinct that drives …
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Europe draws upon three cultural origins: Cretan, Athenian, and Christian. Cretan culture derives from Minoan civilization, pre-Roman Athenian culture to Greek civilization, and Christian culture spread through Roman civilization after …
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Each of the three monotheistic religions, commonly referred to as ‘Abrahamic’, has its own affirmation of faith, a single statement held to be fundamental by its adherents.

In Judaism, such …
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