Boston Review
@bostonreview.bsky.social
A magazine of ideas, politics, and culture, committed to the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world. Independent & nonprofit since 1975. Newsletter: bostonreview.net/newsletter Subscribe: bostonreview.net/memberships
In a defense of Vannevar Bush's case for publicly funded, undirected science, this piece argues that major advances often emerge from unexpected lines of inquiry, pointing to GLP-1 drugs as a product of basic research. By @jeremymberg.bsky.social in @bostonreview.bsky.social buff.ly/xnQjRMR
In Defense of Undirected Science
Jeremy Berg responds to Zeynep Pamuk in our forum, “How to Save Science.”
bostonreview.net
“It’s okay to have complex feelings about things you love; perhaps that’s what love is. Sometimes it feels the wrong way around, books that—as much through purpose as heft—subdue you. They take you over, make demands, and you have to let them run their course.” @markbould.bsky.social
Revenance Event
China Miéville returns to fiction with a secret history of late-twentieth-century Britain.
bostonreview.net
The AI Data Center Backlash A conversation on the groundswell of local organizing and the movement’s political shockwaves. www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The AI Data Center Backlash
A conversation on the groundswell of local organizing and the movement’s political shockwaves.
bostonreview.net
“Representation doesn’t just mean heroes. If we want to show the full range of human experience, it must include the bad. I want heroes, I want villains, I want victims. But I also want to believe they’re people, as opposed to types.” Marlon James on his previous book, Moon Witch, Spider King:
“Representation doesn’t just mean heroes. We need the villains as well.”
Marlon James discusses writing realistic Black characters, being inspired by African folktales, and why we don’t have to let go of the world of make-believe to tell serious stories.
bostonreview.net
“The pivot to ‘intelligent’ search marks much more than a technical innovation. It belongs to a broader crisis of epistemic authority, institutional ruin, and social conflict across the whole of U.S. society.” @chadwellmon.bsky.social in our recent special feature:
What Was the Internet?
As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.
bostonreview.net
“Twelve years of conflict have turned the country inside out, remaking the demographics of vast territories and fracturing families. Ukraine’s ultimate form will only emerge when the guns go silent—on whatever terms—and elections follow.” Paul Hockenos reports from occupied Ukraine:
How to Blow Up a Family
History and identity collide in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
bostonreview.net
“It’s okay to have complex feelings about things you love; perhaps that’s what love is. Sometimes it feels the wrong way around, books that—as much through purpose as heft—subdue you. They take you over, make demands, and you have to let them run their course.” @markbould.bsky.social
Revenance Event
China Miéville returns to fiction with a secret history of late-twentieth-century Britain.
bostonreview.net
“The pivot to ‘intelligent’ search marks much more than a technical innovation. It belongs to a broader crisis of epistemic authority, institutional ruin, and social conflict across the whole of U.S. society.” @chadwellmon.bsky.social in our recent special feature:
What Was the Internet?
As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.
bostonreview.net
Bartov’s most recent book carries the simple title Israel: What Went Wrong? “My book is being published in various countries,” Bartov says, “except in two: Israel and Germany.
Boston Review@bostonreview.bsky.social · 4d ago“The debate about whether the Holocaust is unique is a non-debate. It had unique aspects. What is unique about Gaza is impunity.” Now online from our new issue, @arnonyy.bsky.social talks to @omerbartov.bsky.social about memory politics, the fate of Zionism, and Israel’s “moral abyss”:
“The debate about whether the Holocaust is unique is a non-debate. It had unique aspects. What is unique about Gaza is impunity.” Now online from our new issue, @arnonyy.bsky.social talks to @omerbartov.bsky.social about memory politics, the fate of Zionism, and Israel’s “moral abyss”:
The Stranglehold of Memory
A conversation with Omer Bartov on the fate of Zionism, the “non-debate” about the uniqueness of the Holocaust, and impunity for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
bostonreview.net
“If we are living in the winter of theory, the only task that remains for us today is retrospective.” www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
“Fleeing and winding up in a refugee camp somewhere in western Ukraine was a prospect that filled them with dread. Obviously Russia, a world-class military power, would triumph. Until then, they’d make the best of the military regime, whatever the conditions. What choice did they have, anyway?”
How to Blow Up a Family
History and identity collide in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
bostonreview.net
"[T]he time when Israel had a blank check to kill in the name of the Holocaust is over. One genocide cannot be used to legitimize another." – @omerbartov.bsky.social in @bostonreview.bsky.social www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Stranglehold of Memory
A conversation with Omer Bartov on the fate of Zionism, the “non-debate” about the uniqueness of the Holocaust, and impunity for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
bostonreview.net
"The stories we tell about violence matter immensely. When targeted, interpersonal attacks are the only acts identified as political #violence, state and market violence vanish from view." www.bostonreview.net/articles/wha...
What Is Political Violence?
Pundits and politicians conceal the truth: it’s all around us, perpetrated by our political system itself.
bostonreview.net
“The debate about whether the Holocaust is unique is a non-debate. It had unique aspects. What is unique about Gaza is impunity.” Now online from our new issue, @arnonyy.bsky.social talks to @omerbartov.bsky.social about memory politics, the fate of Zionism, and Israel’s “moral abyss”:
The Stranglehold of Memory
A conversation with Omer Bartov on the fate of Zionism, the “non-debate” about the uniqueness of the Holocaust, and impunity for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
bostonreview.net
“When the sixteen-year-old pieced together a resistance cell to harass the Russian forces occupying his hometown in southeastern Ukraine, he scrupulously concealed his intentions—not least from his parents.” Now online, Paul Hockenos on a family’s unraveling in occupied Ukraine:
How to Blow Up a Family
History and identity collide in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
bostonreview.net
Also, the piece by Johanna Winant referenced in this video is 100% worth reading, too, for anyone trying to elevate reading in their classrooms! www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Claims of Close Reading
Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.
bostonreview.net
“When ICE agents raid homes, when Medicaid is stripped from millions, when unhoused populations are criminalized, both politicians and media speak of ‘policy,’ not ‘violence.’ In this scheme, ‘political violence’ can only be what threatens this system, not what the system itself does.”
What Is Political Violence?
Pundits and politicians conceal the truth: it’s all around us, perpetrated by our political system itself.
bostonreview.net
Lupita Nihongo@otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 5d agoIt’s not suicide it is social murder. It is the result of policy that is explicitly designed to Inflict maximum pain & make a class of people feel as life isn’t worth living.
Catch me, @adambonica.bsky.social, and Osita online this Wednesday 12pm ET/9am PT secure.givelively.org/event/boston...
Which Way, Democratic Party?: A Conversation with Jake Grumbach, Adam Bonica, and Osita Nwanevu by Boston Review
A conversation with Jake Grumbach and Adam Bonica, moderated by Osita Nwanevu.Join us for this online event with Jake Grumbach and Adam Bonica—authors of the recent BR...
secure.givelively.org
“What we found is that the only demographic of Americans that really believes that AI will both improve their lives and improve society are men 65 years old and older, which I would say is probably the cohort that owns more stocks than anyone else.” @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social of @heatmap.news
The AI Data Center Backlash
A conversation on the groundswell of local organizing and the movement’s political shockwaves.
bostonreview.net
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6d agoTrump: "The only reason that communities should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. ... The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame."
Want to hear more about this and the fate of the Democratic Party—in the primaries, midterms, and beyond? Sign up to hear @adambonica.bsky.social and @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social in conversation with Osita Nwanevu TOMORROW, 9/2, at 12pm ET: tinyurl.com/y53z7b9e
Which Way, Democratic Party?: A Conversation with Jake Grumbach, Adam Bonica, and Osita Nwanevu by Boston Review
A conversation with Jake Grumbach and Adam Bonica, moderated by Osita Nwanevu.Join us for this online event with Jake Grumbach and Adam Bonica—authors of the recent BR...
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Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · 2w agoThe Democratic Party has let a consulting industry exploit elderly donors in its name, wreck its reputation and finances in the process, and walk away rich whether the party wins or loses. When a mirror is held up, the instinct is to break the glass rather than look. On why the press looks away:
“When the sixteen-year-old pieced together a resistance cell to harass the Russian forces occupying his hometown in southeastern Ukraine, he scrupulously concealed his intentions—not least from his parents.” Now online, Paul Hockenos on a family’s unraveling in occupied Ukraine:
How to Blow Up a Family
History and identity collide in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
bostonreview.net
“The sort of theory that flourished in the last decades of the twentieth century eventually descended into scholasticism, where real questions of suffering and social transformation were obscured. But we should not mistake the fate of one intellectual fashion for the general fate of theory.”
The Summers of Theory
How it rose, fell, and may rise again.
bostonreview.net
“CRT functions as a signifier for any talk of race and racism at all, a catch-all specter lumping ‘multiculturalism,’ ‘wokeism,’ ‘anti-racism,’ ‘identity politics’—any suggestion that racial inequities are anything but fair outcomes, choices made by equally positioned individuals in a free society.”
The War on Critical Race Theory
The highly orchestrated right-wing attacks cast a body of scholarship about race in the law as a great threat to American society.
bostonreview.net
Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 6d agoI have to admire his ability, after all these years, to come up with a definition of "woke" that is even dumber and worse than anything that came before.
”Global warming is a dire emergency, but it is also an opportunity to make a killing.” Environmental historian Troy Vettese on geoengineering and global warming as market opportunity:
Global Warming, Market Opportunity
On the lure of climate entrepreneurism.
bostonreview.net
Sanho Tree@sanho.bsky.social · 6d agoIs this before or after Space Caligula terraforms Mars?
“These moves have created a climate of such fear and confusion that three-quarters of scientists report they have considered leaving the United States. According to Science, the U.S. government has lost over ten thousand STEM PhDs since Trump took office.”
How to Save Science
Trump has killed the postwar social contract, but its demise was long in the making. To protect science as a public good, we need a different approach.
bostonreview.net
“What we found is that the only demographic of Americans that really believes that AI will both improve their lives and improve society are men 65 years old and older, which I would say is probably the cohort that owns more stocks than anyone else.” @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social of @heatmap.news
The AI Data Center Backlash
A conversation on the groundswell of local organizing and the movement’s political shockwaves.
bostonreview.net
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6d agoTrump: "The only reason that communities should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. ... The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame."
“Armed settler militias, often operating with support from the army, attack and harass Palestinian communities across the West Bank in an effort to make life so unbearable for them that they will be forced out.” —Raja Shehadeh
Standing at the Gates of Hell
In the West Bank, the war on Iran has removed all restraints on settler violence against Palestinians.
bostonreview.net
