Dr. Robert Zaller

Music

In Memoriam: Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra

Memory and mourning was the theme of Michael Tilson Thomas’ concerts this weekend with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The long-time conductor of the San Francisco Orchestra has had a continuing relationship with the Orchestra, and his [ Read Article ]
Politics

Is a Two-Party Solution Possible in the U.S.?

People are talking these days about whether a two-state solution is possible between Israelis and Palestinians, as they do after each fresh outbreak of violence between them. But there is a pressing question closer to [ Read Article ]
Politics

Daughter of the Revolution: The Conscience of Liz Cheney

The most famous newspaper headline in American history appeared in The Chicago Daily Tribune on November 3, 1948, reporting the results of the presidential election just held: “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The Tribune, a devoutly Republican [ Read Article ]
Literary

Towards the Post-Modern Novel: The Polyphonic Consciousness of György Sebestyén

The defining works of the Modernist novel, Proust’s The Remembrance of Things Past, Joyce’s Ulysses, and Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, all worked to dethrone the presuppositions of bourgeois consciousness, with its assumption of fixed [ Read Article ]
Academics

Outsourcing the Future: How America Has Abandoned Its Commitment to Public Education

America’s retreat from its century and a half commitment to public education has now become a rout. There has not been a greater betrayal of our country in my lifetime. There is no more disastrous [ Read Article ]
Politics

Is Humanity a Lost Cause?

Sometimes it takes a deeply conservative intelligence to get to the heart of the matter. Such an intelligence was that of William Butler Yeats, who wrote nearly a century ago that things, not men, were [ Read Article ]
Film

You Can’t Go Home Again: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia at International House

Andrei Tarkovsky, the exact contemporary of the French filmmaker Francois Truffaut (1932-1986), made only seven feature films in his thirty-year career, but their prestige has elevated him to almost mythical status. Ingmar Bergman called him [ Read Article ]

How To Be a Citizen in the Age of Trump

Politics

May 9, 2017 0

“Hey, I’m President! I’m President! Can you believe it?!” That’s what Donald Trump said in celebrating the passage of the American Health Kill bill through the House of Representatives at a beer party on the [ Read Article ]

Why Inequality Matters

Politics

October 13, 2016 0

It’s official (if you ever doubted it): America is a plutocracy, which means, in Lewis Lapham’s paraphrase of Lincoln, government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. Everything about the country bespeaks [ Read Article ]

Politics

When a Liar Speaks the Truth: Why Donald Trump Discomfits Us

March 13, 2017 0

In writing about Donald Trump in these pages last spring, I pointed out that part of his appeal—and his value—lay in his willingness to drive sacred cows out of the barn. Trump, and no one [ Read Article ]

Politics

What Should We Do About an “Election from Hell”?

October 11, 2016 0

Recently, I received an invitation to participate in a discussion about the election this week at Drexel. The objective was to consider the candidates and the issues, and to urge Drexel students to vote. I [ Read Article ]

Film

Edgar and Clyde: A Love Story

October 15, 2016 0

Clint Eastwood is nothing if not unpredictable. His latest film, J. Edgar, is an old-fashioned Hollywood biopic shot at a leisured pace—two hours and seventeen minutes—with polished production values and meticulous attention to period detail. [ Read Article ]