Dr. Robert Zaller

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

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 ]
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 ]
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 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 ]
Politics

What Does a Fair Trial Cost?

What do Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Leslie Moonves, Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen, Dustin Hoffman, James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Peter Martins, John Conyers, and Al Franken have in common? They are all prominent males [ 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 ]

Democracy 2016: The Circus Comes to Town

Politics

October 11, 2016 0

Donald Trump says he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and not lose any votes. I believe it, too. First of all, it’s a hypothetical—the Donald doesn’t really mean it. Secondly, if he [ 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 ]

Politics

The Country, the Constitution, and the President

January 21, 2020 0

A recently posted comment by a CNN analyst, Stephen Collinson, seemed to me to sum up our current state of affairs: At a time of tribal politics and during a presidency that has evolved into [ Read Article ]

Politics

The Man Who Came to Dinner

September 29, 2020 0

A very funny play called The Man Who Came to Dinner had a two-year run on Broadway in 1939-40, enjoyed international success, and became an acclaimed movie. The plot concerned an overbearing media personality who’s [ Read Article ]

Politics

F for Fake: The Alternative Presidency of Donald Trump

June 12, 2017 0

Orson Welles, the great American filmmaker, loved a good joke. He began his career with a radio broadcast about a Martian invasion of New Jersey that threw the whole country into a panic, and ended [ Read Article ]