Subscribe to RSSRead the Winter 2011 issue of The Current below or download a PDF of the full issue here
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On August 21, 2011, visitors to Bwog, a Columbia student news blog, found a shocking headline staring back at them: “BREAKING: Dean Moody-Adams Resigns.” Michele Moody-Adams, Dean of Columbia College, had sent a resignation email to the top administration and select alumni of the university. Moody-Adams charged that Columbia University’s administration was planning “changes” to the deanship that would “have the effect of diminishing and in some important instances eliminating the authority...
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By Stephanie Goldstein Our names sound different. Speaking the God-gurgling syllables In our baby-fat calves And tender, roasting ears. Committed to orthodoxy Down to the split grains of sugar Heaps of damp flour in Our digested Hebrew-lettered childhood I always hear the sweetness churning. I am bent over you Head bobbing back and forth Whispering Hashem, Hash— Curve, curve dash. You only hear me In the language God spoke When he told us we were sisters Bound to each other through tales Of...
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By Jacob Snider Recently I have been obsessed with the mannerisms of human beings—the way we speak and talk, and also…the way we walk. This fall, in New York City, I have been consumed with simply watching the way people maneuver through space—on the sidewalk, crossing the street, on the subway, or while they are eating on a bench. In all of these arenas, there are social contracts and standards of “accepted behavior.” Of course, these public spaces, being inhabited mostly by people...
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By Aaron Kohn Relieved to land in Dulles, having feared Hurricane Irene would block my flight from Addis Ababa, I sit in the almost empty airport, keeping my fingers crossed for my connection. It’s the first time I’ve had high-speed Internet (one of my flaws) in a number of months, and I’m sure the glow of my laptop screen on my glasses makes me look in a trance. I barely notice that a young man has chosen a seat directly across from me in the waiting area. My eyes meet his. He looks like...
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By Maddie Wolberg The start of the Cold War heralded something new for American academia. Fear of Soviet intentions and a desire to understand what was happening behind the impenetrable Iron Curtain refocused U.S. government efforts towards any and all sources of information on the Soviet regime. Robert Legvold, a Columbia political science professor and the director of the Harriman Institute from 1986 to 1992, told me that, at that time, the government “was very weak in journal expertise,”...
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By Shira Poliak When thousands of Jews began immigrating to then-Palestine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, few were prepared to confront the obstacles they faced developing the barren land. The Judean Hills were inhospitable mounds of rock, the Galilee a malaria-infested marshland, the Negev vast and empty—land seemingly unsuited for tilling. Unskilled and unfamiliar with the arid Middle Eastern landscape, most of the settlers had no prior farming experience. But motivated...
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By Jeremy Liss and David Fine Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, a Bloomberg View columnist, and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. He writes about a variety of subjects, but lately Goldberg’s published works, including his book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, focus on the intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wider geopolitical movements of the Middle East. Recently, The Current sat down with Goldberg in The Atlantic’s...
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By Sam Schube On December 7, 2011, The Current hosted a panel discussion between Columbia Professors Mark Lilla and Adam Kirsch on Columbia’s campus. Moderated by Current Senior Editor Sam Schube, the event revolved around issues posed in Kirsch’s new book, Why Trilling Matters. Schube’s review of the book and video of the event appears below. Part I Mark Lilla & Adam Kirsch on Why Lionel Trilling Matters: Part I Part II Mark Lilla & Adam Kirsch on Lionel Trilling: Part II A friend...
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By Hannah Novack In 1942, shortly following the United States’ entry into World War II, Architectural Forum commissioned several well-known architects, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn and Charles Eames, to design a hypothetical suburban city for a population of 70,000. Still reeling in recovery from the tumult of the Great Depression and newly engaged in the century’s second global conflict, American society found itself in a period defined by flux and uncertainty. The commissions...
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By Max Daniel The New York School, an informal collective of artists, poets, dancers, and musicians, emerged in the 1950s and generated much of the era’s underground and alternative cultural trends. In addition to Beat poetry and Jazz, abstract expressionist art was one of the group’s most influential contributions to American culture. Adapting surrealist and cubist styles, among others, this aesthetic approach helped define the landscape of post-war American art, intriguing and exciting audiences...
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By Liora Hostyk Sermon in italics by Getzel Davis Yom Kippur has been misunderstood to be a sad day. But really, early rabbinic texts call Yom Kippur one of the two happiest days of the year. What makes this day happy? It is the day of forgiveness. Drums beat through the streets, protesters yelling out injustices and policemen lining the blocks, and above us towered a glassy building (large black letters told us BROWN BROTHERS HARMON) and a giant red cube, poised on one corner on the verge of...
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From the Editors: The (Potentially) Diminished Dean of Columbia College
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Boroughing: Shapes of My Heart
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Boroughing: Into My Mind
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Far Flung: Permanent Resident
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Cloak and Pen: Harriman, the Government, & Sovietology
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Refuge Rethought: Building a South Sudanese Kibbutz
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“This is your family. This is your people.” An Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg
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Review: The Case for Moral Intelligence
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Review: Urban Reimagination & Post-Crisis Ideals
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Review: In Defense of de Kooning
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Far Flung: #occupyyomkippur