Louis Menand is a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of English at Harvard and a staff writer for the New Yorker. His most recent book, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University, traces the rise of the modern university system and asks hard questions about whether higher education’s historical goals and structures are [...]
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I recently had the chance to interview Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe for Harvard Divinity School’s alumni publication. The piece is here.
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Christopher Robichaud’s office at Harvard Kennedy School is filled with role-playing board games, at least one giant John F. Kennedy action figure, and hundreds upon hundreds of books. Most are standard philosophy volumes, but several shelves are devoted to his other passion: horror. Robichaud’s penchant for the dark side also colors the title of the [...]
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Beginning in 2003, Democrat Artur Davis represented Alabama’s 7th District for four terms in Congress. Following a defeat in Alabama’s 2010 gubernatorial primary, he retired from politics. Late last year, Davis left the Democratic Party and became an independent. Davis is currently a Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. This conversation took place in his [...]
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Carlo Rotella is one of the most exciting thinkers I’ve ever met. He’s a professor, writer, and public intellectual, and his mind ranges everywhere: from boxing to the blues and free play to fantasy novels. A couple of weeks ago, Rotella wrote a brilliant column in the Boston Globe about the challenge of conveying nuanced ideas in media [...]
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Check out the brand-new Wheat and Chaff Podcast. First episode? An interview with convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Click above to play. And of course, let us know what you think. You can also download the podcast here.
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[Update: a podcast version of this interview is available here.] Jack Abramoff helped break Congress, and now he’s trying to fix it. In the mid-2000’s, Abramoff was earning $20 million a year selling his clients access to the Republican House leadership. He owned restaurants, flew on private jets, and set up golf outings for congressmen [...]
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Michael Dukakis was the 1988 Democratic nominee for president. He also served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975-1979 and 1983-1991. On December 6th, I spoke with him about the lessons of ’88, Obama’s communications strategy, and the Occupy movement. MATT BIEBER: In an interview you did a few years ago with Katie Couric, you described [...]
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In October of 2009, MP David Bahati introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in the Ugandan Parliament. The bill – which proposed the death penalty for homosexuality – immediately became infamous around the world. At that time, Val Kalende was a veteran activist in the struggle for LGBT rights in Uganda. Kalende had come out in 2003 [...]
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In the early 1960′s, Marshall Ganz dropped out of Harvard to join the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. He then spent 16 years working with César Chávez and the United Farm Workers before returning to Harvard to finish his BA and earn a Ph.D. in sociology. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he architected Barack Obama’s organizing effort. [...]
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