In the inaugural episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan and Russell Berman talk with Fred Siegel about his forthcoming book The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump. Order your copy today in our online store and save 20% off the list price. In the podcast, Siegel discusses the growth of the administrative state, the similarities between former New York City mayor John Lindsay and Barack Obama, the Black Lives Matter movement, the echoes of the 1960s in today’s politics, and the rise of left-wing fascism.
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Telos editor Russell A. Berman has received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. This award, named after the president of the Board of Trustees who served from 1953 to 1958, recognizes distinctive contributions to undergraduate education or to the quality of student life. Berman is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, a professor of comparative literature and German Studies, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was honored “for more than three decades of excellence as a teacher and scholar at Stanford and as a national voice, working to re-envision humanities education in this time of transition.” Now posted at the Inside Higher Ed website, an excerpt from Russell A. Berman’s presidential address at the 2012 meeting of the Modern Language Association. Not all doctorate recipients will become faculty members, but all future faculty will come out of graduate programs. Do these programs serve the needs of graduate students well? In light of the rate of educational debt carried by humanities doctoral recipients, twice that of their peers in sciences or engineering; in light of the lengthy time to degree in the humanities, reaching more than nine years; and in light of the dearth of opportunities on the job market, the system needs to be changed significantly. I want to begin to sketch out an agenda for reform. The major problem on all of our minds is the job market, the lack of sufficient tenure-track openings for recent doctorate recipients. One response I have heard is the call to reduce the flow of new applicants for jobs by limiting access to advanced study in the humanities. If we prevent some students from pursuing graduate study—so the argument goes—we will protect the job market for others. I disagree. Read the full essay here. Telos 157 (Winter 2011) is now available for purchase here. In this video from the 2011 Telos Conference, held this past weekend in New York City, Russell Berman welcomes the conference participants and discusses some of the conference’s key themes: economics and politics, neo-liberalism and neo-socialism, the state of exception, rituals and ritualized behavior, and more.
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The political disorder grows ever thicker. As of this writing, the European financial crisis seems as far away from resolution as ever, although the same complaint might have pertained three months ago nor is the diagnosis likely to lose its validity three months hence. The eurozone insists on tumbling toward an economic catastrophe that may drag the rest of the world down as well. Meanwhile prospects for a liberalizing democracy in the former Communist empire have largely vanished from living (or incarcerated) memory, and the trajectory of the Arab Spring poses more questions than answers. To be sure, things may still take a turn for the good, and the ignominious ends of some of the dictators merit celebration. Yet deserving candidates for violent overthrow and execution remain in power, in Damascus and Tehran, terrorizing their populations, amidst a larger civil war throughout the Middle East. Much of this disorder has profound local roots, stemming from competition among alternative religious traditions, political models, and economic agenda. But some of the instability results as well from the loss of ballast in the wake of the American retreat, itself a symptom of the chaos of American politics. The pre-primary period optimizes neither political virtue nor sober leadership, but even with that qualification, this lead-up to the 2012 electoral season stands out for its chilling hopelessness. It is hard to imagine a happy end to the story. The power of the state continues to expand, which undermines the integrity of individuals, but its capacity to influence the economy nonetheless diminishes. Disorder surrounds us, and the center gives way. Is there room for civic virtue? 
