Tweet The Charisma Deficit One mystery of the current stand-off in Egypt is the absence of a clear charismatic alternative to Hosni Mubarak. This deficit seems to be the case in much of the Arab Middle-East, where, in spite of long standing authoritarian regimes and longstanding opposition movements, true charismatic leaders have not emerged...
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Tweet This morning’s Wall Street Journal has a long feature on the Indian State of Gujarat, which is essentially a PR piece for Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the State, who has been identified by a series of groups, inquiries and reports to have actively encouraged the killing of hundreds of Muslims in...
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Tweet I first saw the term “Blood Libel” used in a Wall Street Journal editorial, an early entry in the “it’s-not-our-fault=don’t blame us” response from the American Right to the recent Tucson murders. Sarah Palin, as usual, picked the term up for its color, doubtlessly ignorant of its pathological Anti-Semitic roots. It’s yet another...
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Tweet Image by circulating via Flickr The Arizona shootings are a moment for America to search its soul. The public debate about hate, anger, sanity and public life in the United States is long overdue. We have grown accustomed to thinking of ourselves as a centrist country. We imagine that others, in dark places...
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Tweet Reposted from November 7, 2008 at “The Immanent Frame” at the SSCR: Something extraordinary happened on November 4. And even those who did not vote for Barack Obama knew that they had entered a new world after 11.00 PM that night, when he was declared the victor and gave a great, short speech....
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Tweet Image via Wikipedia From October 15, 2008 posted at “The Immanent Frame” at the SSCR: Last week as I listened, along with many other Americans and others around the world, to President Bush’s most recent effort to reassure us about the current economic meltdown I had a “Road to Damascus” moment. It happened...
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Tweet Welcome to ArjunAppadurai.Org, a site I am dedicating to create a global classroom so to speak by hosting dialog and debate on questions I find particularly stimulating and pertinent to today’s shifting world. I will pose questions that reach back throughout my career in Cultural Anthropology, Globalization, and India, while bringing fresh inquiries...
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