Dr. Robert Zaller

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 ]
Music

Early and Late Beethoven, with Fauré

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, winding down its current season, has saved some of its best for last. The Ébène Quartet, beginning a year-long worldwide tour, plans to record all of Beethoven’s quartets in live [ 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

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 ]
Politics

The Real Forever War: Israel and the Palestinians

Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw American soldiers from Afghanistan before September 11 is not, of course, an end to the war in Afghanistan itself, a forty-year conflict that began with the Soviet occupation of the [ 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 ]
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 ]

Of Sacred Spaces and the Right of Protest: The Orchestra’s Tour of Israel

Music

June 25, 2018 0

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s just-concluded tour of Germany, Austria, and Israel has been the most controversial in its history. No, visiting Germany, where a resurgent right wing openly invokes the symbols of Nazism, wasn’t the problem. [ Read Article ]

The Real Forever War: Israel and the Palestinians

Politics

June 4, 2021 0

Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw American soldiers from Afghanistan before September 11 is not, of course, an end to the war in Afghanistan itself, a forty-year conflict that began with the Soviet occupation of the [ Read Article ]

Greece

It’s Time for Greece to Leave the Reich

October 15, 2016 0

Greece has just scraped together the money to make its latest, $757 million (848 million euro) payment to its European (read: German) debtmasters. It did so, without cash enough in the national coffers, by forcibly [ Read Article ]

Politics

It Has Happened Here: America’s First Fascist President

July 18, 2018 1

In 1935, the third year of Hitler’s Third Reich, Sinclair Lewis published a novel called It Can’t Happen Here, speculating on the possibility that fascism might come to America. This spring, the legal scholar Cass [ Read Article ]

Music

In Memoriam: Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra

March 13, 2017 0

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 ]

Essays, Reviews & Commentary

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

Early and Late Beethoven, with Fauré

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

Daughter of the Revolution: The Conscience of Liz Cheney

The Real Forever War: Israel and the Palestinians

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

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

Recent Articles

Of Sacred Spaces and the Right of Protest: The Orchestra’s Tour of Israel

The Real Forever War: Israel and the Palestinians

It’s Time for Greece to Leave the Reich

It Has Happened Here: America’s First Fascist President

In Memoriam: Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra

Posts Gallery by Category

How Donald Trump Won—and Why Hillary Clinton Lost

When a University Loses Its Soul

Our Broken Polity, and How To Fix It

Not Another Day in Afghanistan or Iraq

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

From Vienna to Budapest: The Marlboro Musicians Perform

Donald Trump Is Leaving Office with a Holocaust

Democracy 2016: The Circus Comes to Town

Endgame for the Grexit, or More of the Same?

Pay To Play: America in the Middle East Today

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

Editor’s Picks

About me