While in Indonesia in 2011, photographer David Slater’s camera was grabbed by a macaque. While monkey shines are nothing new, this monkey took hundreds of shots including some selfies that went viral on the internet. As many things often do, this incident resulted in a legal controversy over the copyright status of the photos. The United States copyright office recently ruled that “Works produced...
[New Entry by Jan van Eijck and Rineke (L.C.) Verbrugge on September 8, 2014.] Social procedures that have algorithmic aspects can often be improved by redesign. This holds for voting and other peaceful decision making procedures, for match-making, for auctioning, for fair division of estates, and for many procedures of distributive justice. The algorithmic aspects can be analyzed with formal methods....
2014.09.11 : View this Review Online View Recent NDPR Reviews Michael L. Morgan, Fackenheim's Jewish Philosophy: An Introduction, University of Toronto Press, 2013, 399pp., $34.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781442612662. Reviewed by Michael Zank, Boston University Students of philosophy may be familiar with Emil Fackenheim as the author of a book on Hegel's philosophy of religion.[1] Students of Jewish philosophy...
2014.09.12 : View this Review Online View Recent NDPR Reviews Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, Editiones Scholasticae, 2014, 302pp., $24.95 (pbk), ISBN 97838683854441. Reviewed by Paul Symington, Franciscan University of Steubenville Thomists look to the thought of Thomas Aquinas, his major interpreters, and Aristotle for guidance in addressing a full range of perennial...
“Can I suggest something?” I look up at Juliana Nicolai, my table-hopping inquisitor at Al Crostino, and nod, which prompts the chef to pantomime the preparation of one of the night’s specials: eggplant stuffed with pork sausage and finished with tomato sauce. As she talks up the appetizer, she removes the flesh of an imaginary vegetable and drapes the length with invisible tomato sauce. Read full...
This past spring, I made a reservation at the Aviary, the Chicago cocktail mecca co-owned by chef Grant Achatz. I got there before sunset, so the neighborhood was suffused with that late-afternoon light in which everything — train tracks, graffiti, dumpsters — looks beautiful. Seated at my table, with streams of that golden light rolling through the windows, I watched as the couple to my right received...
NEW YORK — This city’s fashion week is an open forum. For a price, anyone can show a collection. There is no vetting process. There are no gatekeepers ensuring that the fashion industry remains an exclusive club. As a result, there are more than 200 runway shows and presentations over the course of 10 days including a party celebrating Barbie and an exhibition of designs created for Snoopy. Read full...
With all of the chaos of the first few weeks of school, back-to-school night may seem like one more appointment that you have to squeeze in between soccer practice and homework. The annual ritual is more than just a recruiting opportunity for the PTO or Girl Scouts, though. It’s a chance to find out what is really going on in your child’s classroom—beyond the daily schedule and homework procedures—and...
We know that children raised by two parents tend to be more successful — at school, in the future labor market, in their own marriages — than children raised by a single mom or dad. And from this fact, it might seem easy to conclude that marriage wields some outsized power over a child's life — that its absence creates unstable homes and chaotic families, while its presence nurtures them. Read full...
Recently, the kids and I were guests at our city’s beach club, where life is good and the people are good looking. While there, we shared the shoreline with another family that consisted of a 50-something mom and her 11-year-old son who was inexplicably (but thankfully!) content to muck around in the sand with my 5- and 7-year-old boys. Which was great because it freed me up to observe what happened...
The cast and a crew from the NBC show “ Parks and Recreation ” filmed some scenes in Washington this weekend, something the show’s producers wanted very badly to keep under wraps. A publicist for the show tells us that details about the shoot are practically classified information, since they fear that even the tiniest detail might serve as a spoiler for the sitcom’s seventh and final season, slated...
COCOA CRISPED: Pastry chef and chocolatier Rachelle Dalva Ferneau puts global (and locavore) touches in her line of Dear Coco artisan confections of Bethesda, which are vegan, gluten-free, certified kosher pareve and made with Belgian chocolate. Recently added to her line of truffles (pictured at top, 12-piece Around the World collection, $25.50) are her toffee and chocolate bars (nine kinds, 3.5...
2014.09.10 : View this Review Online View Recent NDPR Reviews Allen W. Wood, The Free Development of Each: Studies on Freedom, Right and Ethics in Classical German Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2014, 330pp., $65.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199685530. Reviewed by Arthur Ripstein, University of Toronto Allen Wood's new book has two aims. First, it is a series of twelve essays on Kant and his successors,...
How did creativity – a contemporary obsession – transform from a way of being to a way of doing, from an internal liveliness to an external compulsion to make things?… more» Continue reading . . . News source: Arts & Letters Daily ...
Once broad and expansive, the humanities are now reserved for narrow academic purists. Just look what happened to the philology… more» Continue reading . . . News source: Arts & Letters Daily ...
College at 15, marriage at 17, a son at 19: What does that suggest about Susan Sontag? “Eagerness to grow up. I hated being a child”… more» Continue reading . . . News source: Arts & Letters Daily ...
2014.09.09 : View this Review Online View Recent NDPR Reviews Marina Berzins McCoy, Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2013, 228pp., $99.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199672783. Reviewed by Håkan Tell, Dartmouth College Marina Berzins McCoy sets out to explore philosophically the concept of human vulnerability in Greek thought. Vulnerability...
Job List: Americas Name of institution: University at Albany (State University of New York) Town: Albany, NY Country: . . . Continue reading . . . News source: Jobs In Philosophy ...
NEW YORK — Beyond the obvious benefits of a strong fashion industry — revenue, jobs, infrastructure — the greatest contribution of fashion is its ability to capture history in a single poetic gesture. A wrinkled and sweaty shirt can speak to a night of debauchery that ends in joyful exhaustion, a particularly faded jacket can represent comfort and languid weekend mornings, a beige suit worn by the...
Competition: Win Tickets to see King Charles III at London's Almeida Theatre History Today Jump to Navigation Tuesday, 09 September 2014 Login / Register Search this site: Competition: Win Tickets to see King Charles III at London's Almeida Theatre By History Today Published in History Today The Queen is dead: after a lifetime of waiting, the prince ascends the throne. A future of power. But how...