BY HANK REICHMAN The American Library Association (ALA) and a coalition of more than 25 groups have come together in support of the association’s Unite Against Book Bans campaign to raise awareness about the recent rise in book challenges in public libraries and schools, the association announced on Monday. “This is a dangerous time for…
BY HANK REICHMAN Four journalists associated with an independent Moscow student magazine were sentenced April 12 to two years’ “corrective labor” for creating and posting an online video in which they defended young Russians’ freedom of assembly. Armen Aramyan, Natasha Tyshkevich, Alla Gutnikova and Volodya Metelkin, participants in the editorial collective of the journal DOXA,…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following are excerpts from a special report, The State of America’s Libraries, released today by the American Library Association. Librarians have always been on the front lines in the fight to protect the freedom to read. But in 2021, libraries found themselves at the center of attacks orchestrated by conservative…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN In the ongoing discussions over the relationship between free speech and academic freedom and debates over the rights of outside speakers versus those of student protesters, an article published yesterday in Times Higher Education makes some excellent points. The author, George Letsas, a philosophy professor at University College London, writes in…
BY HANK REICHMAN The following joint statement was issued March 9 in English, Ukrainian, and Russian: As international professional associations that foster the study of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian peoples and cultures, ASEEES, BASEES, and AATSEEL* are committed to promoting international communication among scholars of all countries and identities across the humanities and social…
BY HANK REICHMAN Human affairs are filled with contradiction. “Cognitive dissonance,” the mental stress associated with holding two opposing views at the same time, is far from uncommon. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously declared, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still…
BY HANK REICHMAN The California Supreme Court declined this week to stay an injunction that requires the University of California at Berkeley to freeze enrollment at Fall 2020 levels while a lawsuit against the university filed by a resident group proceeds. The suit, filed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), charges that the university…
BY HANK REICHMAN Despite ongoing and lively debate among scholars of the region about the nature and histories of Russian and Ukrainian nationalism, the origins and causes of the current crisis, and the appropriate role for the US and its allies in the conflict, a remarkable unanimity has emerged among scholarly organizations in Russian and…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The letter below, which has so far attracted over 700 signatures, a veritable who’s-who of Jewish and Israel Studies, comes in response to the University of Washington placing its five-year-old Israel Studies Program on hold after a major donor, angry about a professor’s criticism of Israel, took her money back. Becky…
BY HANK REICHMAN The Delhi High Court today ordered Twitter to take down within 48 hours certain tweets by Rutgers University historian Audrey Truschke, days after she and other scholars were barred by the court from publishing a letter accusing an Indian popular historian of plagiarism. On Tuesday. a large group of scholars had issued…