Narrative, Deconstruction, and Counter-terrorism

My colleagues at the strategy, national security, and military affairs journal The Bridge published my review today of some recent works by Ajit Maan, who brings a background in post-structuralist literary theory to her work in counter-terrorism. The post includes an extended close analysis of a recent ISIS video to highlight the care Daesh takes in producing and editing its propaganda (warning: the video is very graphic). Maan’s work points the way toward how high-level literary theory can help guide the use of “soft power” on behalf of democratic, post-colonial, and multi-cultural ideals—a fascinating and important blend of the philosophical and the practical.

 

Individual Liberty and the Power to Exclude

My friends at the libertarian Niskanen Center kindly gave me a forum to meditate on the President’s recent executive order about immigration. The post is here. The think tank has been publishing terrific critiques of the administration from a libertarian and center-right perspective, though it’s contributors are wonderfully hard to classify, forging a new political and ideological space—do keep an eye on these folks!

A River Runs Through It

I have a guest post today on Environment, Law, and History discussing my latest video. Thanks to editor David Schorr for giving me the chance to contribute again to his blog. David directs the Berg Institute for Law and History and the Law and Environment Program at the Buchmann Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University.

 

A Lively, Learned Symposium

The symposium about The Rule of the Clan on Concurring Opinions continues—and continues to be highly engaging, with many intelligent, learned posts from the respondents and interesting comments from readers, spanning subjects as diverse as the war in Afghanistan, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, and “The Godfather.”

You can find the full symposium thus far, with posts in reverse chronological order, here. The provided link will continue to update until the symposium comes to a close this Friday.

A Clan Framework for Foreign Affairs

I’m delighted that for the next couple of days my essay “The Call of the Clan” will be the cover story on the website of Foreign Policy.

Giving Away My Library

It was great. You can read about it on FSG Work in Progress, here.

Chipping away at the state

The Chronicle of Higher Education today published an essay of mine, “The Paradox of Individualism,” which is available through the journal’s gated, subscriber site, here.

—

Update 4/1/13, 2 p.m.: The article also seems to be available to non-subscribers for the next five days, here.

Why Clans Now? An Interview on Concurring Opinions

The blog Concurring Opinions has published this interview with me about The Rule of the Clan conducted by Deven Desai. I talk with Deven about some of the ideas in the book and how I came to write it.

My only regret is that we sensibly decided to cut part of the interview in which I warn Deven that my ability to sing Bollywood songs in the original Hindi has expanded beyond this classic—and that he’ll be subjected to my expanded repertoire the next time he visits Connecticut:

Indian friends will know the meaning of the words.

A Writing Playlist

Here is a piece that appeared on Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s The Hive about the music I listened to while writing The Rule of the Clan—which is out today!

My New Post on Life of the Law

The terrific new website Life of the Law recently asked some of its friends which book most changed the way they think about law. Here is my answer. The other respondents so far are Cass Sunstein and Emily Bazelon.