By David Pan · Monday, June 30, 2025 Telos 211 (Summer 2025): Dispatches from the Culture Wars is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats.
 As we survey the landscape of war today, it has become truer than ever that hot wars are a consequence of culture wars. Trump’s support for Israel against Iran contrasts with the discourse on college campuses that opposes Israel as a white supremacist, settler-colonial state. In opposing the most egalitarian liberal democracy in the Middle East, this left-wing perspective poses a major threat to the liberal values that the United States has always stood for. But the anti-Israel protests at colleges represent only the tip of the iceberg of a more widespread form of hierarchical rule that has established itself globally through a “new class” of managers. Looked at in this way, the culture war at U.S. universities will have far-reaching consequences for the future of the world. At stake are not merely research funding and tax breaks, but a social structure that privileges expert opinion over popular rule in all areas of our society. Colleges and universities are the key to this system, as the social sciences train the professionals that go on to manage the lives of the uncredentialed, while the humanities develop the perspectives that justify this form of managerial rule. In this issue of Telos, we consider how today’s culture wars over universities will shape the global future.
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By Telos Press · Tuesday, July 11, 2023 In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Stephen Muecke about his article “Belonging in Aboriginal Australia: A Political ‘Cosmography,'” from Telos 202 (Spring 2023). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation they discuss how cosmography rather than ethnography allows for a focus on epistemological and ontological pluralism, and what such pluralism means for the essay’s cosmographic analysis; whether ontological pluralism is fundamentally incompatible with monotheistic religion and the institutions that have derived from it; how important for the essay’s analysis is institutional belonging, and whether the centering effect of such belonging could conflict with an ontological pluralism; how Native Title in the Australian legal system is grounded in the idea of genealogy, and whether this orientation undermines or contradict the forms of title and territorial sovereignty documented in Goolarabooloo practices; and the key differences between the Goolarabooloo practices and Yawuru nationalism. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 202 are available for purchase in our online store.
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By Telos Press · Thursday, December 17, 2020 In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Greg Melleuish about his article “Constitution and Culture: The Unusual Case of Australia,” from Telos 189 (Winter 2019). An excerpt of the article appears here. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Purchase a print copy of Telos 189 in our online store.
Listen to the podcast here.
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By Greg Melleuish · Wednesday, June 29, 2016 Political analysts have a tendency to consider political events within a relatively short time frame. This tendency has become worse over time as the study of political history has declined, and the historical memory of many analysts is often quite short. Despite this, the case for looking at the politics of a country or civilization in terms of its longue durée is quite compelling, as there can be deep structures underlying politics that are not apparent until they are investigated. Brexit provides a good example. For many people Brexit is viewed in terms of the last twenty-five years and the impact that globalization has had on Britain, as if such things have only taken place in recent times. There are deep structures in the politics of any country that shape its political culture, and hence its response to changing circumstances.
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By Telos Press · Monday, April 14, 2014 The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute has several important events in the works for 2014, including conferences and symposia in Melbourne, Australia, Beijing, China, L’Aquila, Italy, and Irvine, California. At the recent Telos Conference in New York City, David Pan, Executive Director of the Institute, outlined the themes for this year’s conference.
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