She has been called the world’s most famous political prisoner. With her small stature, calm demeanor, and unflinching calls for democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi has become a symbol of international human rights. She has led the opposition movement in Burma (officially known as Myanmar) since she returned to the country in 1988. The military […]
In the short but cunningly constructed imaginative work The Lives of Animals, protagonist Elizabeth Costello is about to give a lecture at fictional Appleton College. A novelist herself and an advocate for animal rights, Costello is, in her own words, “an old woman” who no longer has the time “to say things I do not […]
The Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, approach justice a little differently. The Western legal system has gradually refined an approach to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused and then mete out punishment for the guilty. The Maori approach, a version of restorative justice, focuses instead on the victims. Rather than simply […]
It was often difficult and dangerous during the communist years for Poles to read what they wanted or study the subjects they desired. Teachers felt compelled to gloss over many aspects of Soviet history, information about political and economic topics was tightly controlled, and philosophical approaches other than Marxism merited little attention in the classroom. […]
Artist Nikki Lee is more than a chameleon. She not only takes on the pattern of her surroundings, she fully inhabits them. In a series of photographs called the “Hip-Hop Project,” her skin has somehow acquired a darker shade than usual, she wears bling-bling jewelry, and is seen hanging out with rappers. For the “Seniors […]
In the middle of Washington, DC lies a two-mile expanse of public space that stretches from the Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial. The diamond-shaped National Mall is a truly public space open to a wide variety of public activities. Art lovers can visit a dozen free museums that line the sides of the Mall. […]
The difference in price between a patented medicine and a generic drug can be a nuisance in a wealthy country but a matter of life and death in the Third World. The antiretroviral treatment for HIV-AIDS has been successful in stemming the tide of the disease for those who can afford the drugs. However in […]
In 1975, the small island of East Timor fell out of the clutches of one colonial power and into those of another. As Portugal closed out its empire around the world, including its tiny outposts in Southeast Asia, independence movements fought for control of East Timor, with the revolutionary group Fretelin seizing power in the […]
Poetry could turn out thousands of fans in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Long before the advent of poetry slams, Russians crowded into soccer stadiums to listen to the likes of Yevgeni Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky. It was a time when, as Voznesensky writes, “Russian poetry broke out to squares, concert halls and stadiums. […]
Before theorist Pierre Bourdieu became his favorite author and before he became a noted warlord in Chechnya, Musa Shanib was trained as a sociologist in the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s. A native of central Caucasus, Shanib acquired a modest reputation as an “oppositionist” during his student days, but only came to prominence […]