Book Reviews by Shalon van Tine
Society for U.S. Intellectual History
Quarterly Review of Film and Video
CounterPunch
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) currently boasts being the largest socialist organizat... more The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) currently boasts being the largest socialist organization in the United States with over 92,000 members. According to its website, the DSA focuses on four key issues: healthcare, labor unions, environmentalism, and electoral strategy. However, that last goal has arguably been the main focal point since DSA supported the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders. That electoral politics have been the center of attention for DSA is no accident: it is the core vision of its founder, Michael Harrington. For Harrington, the only way socialists could make waves in American politics would be to work within the established party system. If socialists could move members of the Democratic Party to the left, then the party would make meaningful reforms that would help working and oppressed people. Unfortunately, this strategy of realignment has continually failed to push the party leftward. In his book, A Failure of Vision, Doug Greene traces the genealogy of Harrington's thought and its fundamental impact on the DSA today.
Center for Open Education
American Indian Quarterly
Journal of Global South Studies
American Indian Quarterly
Journal of Global South Studies
Journal of Popular Culture
Articles by Shalon van Tine
Former People
"The earth is my body; my head is in the stars."
Myth & Mayhem
conservative pundit Roger Kimball wrote that college students had become "committed to an ethic o... more conservative pundit Roger Kimball wrote that college students had become "committed to an ethic of cultural relativism," and that "in order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary options."[4] Even though conservatives characterized postmodernism as a problem with the left, the rise of "fake news" and media spectacle associated with Donald Trump caused left-leaning thinkers to depict postmodernism as a problem with the right. Literary critic Jeet Heer called Trump "America's First Postmodern President," saying that the president "is the product not just of a fluke election or a racist and sexist backlash, but the culmination of late capitalism."[5] Journalist Ryan Cooper argued that the politics of the right represented "a load of cynical gobbledygook," and that "if there is any political faction that behaves like the most hysterically exaggerated caricature of postmodernism, it is the current Republican Party."[6] That both sides of the political spectrum blame postmodernism for society's ills points to an issue of definition. Postmodernism is not so much a problem of the left or the right, but rather, the problem lies in its vague terminology and the common theoretical misunderstandings associated with it. In other words, when the left or the right speaks of postmodernism, they usually mean different things. Postmodernism is better understood as an umbrella term that houses a wide range of political, economic, and aesthetic ideas under it. To get to the heart of postmodernism's consequences, it is first necessary to take a step back and determine what postmodernism actually is. Postmodernism and Its Relationship to Modernism As its name suggests, postmodernism is often considered the era that comes after modernism. Like postmodernism, modernism is a broad category that contains a collection of twentieth-century ideas, and it is replete with its own contradictions and varying perspectives. In some ways, postmodernism is a reaction against modernism, yet in other ways, postmodernism is an extension of it.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
ince colleges are places where thousands of people work in close proximity to one another, and si... more ince colleges are places where thousands of people work in close proximity to one another, and since our aim should be to deter preventable death and illness, universities should remain closed in the fall.
Uploads
Book Reviews by Shalon van Tine
Articles by Shalon van Tine