Reading for Battle
Battle Readings is a regularly updated compilation of articles, essays, and opinion pieces relevant to the themes of the Battle of Ideas.
Choose a theme from the listing on the left to narrow your search, or view all readings.
International Relations & Development
Against the Populist Temptation
The French and Dutch NO to the project of European constitution was a clear-cut case of what in the "French theory" is referred to as a floating signifier: a NO of confused, inconsistent, overdetermined meanings, a kind of container in which the defense of workers' rights coexists with racism, in which the blind reaction to a perceived threat and fear of change coexist with vague utopian hopes.
Slavoj Zizek, lacandotcom
The French and Dutch NO to the project of European constitution was a clear-cut case of what in the "French theory" is referred to as a floating signifier: a NO of confused, inconsistent, overdetermined meanings, a kind of container in which the defense of workers' rights coexists with racism, in which the blind reaction to a perceived threat and fear of change coexist with vague utopian hopes.
Slavoj Zizek, lacandotcom
Environmental Colonialism: 'Saving' Africa from Africans
Under the banner of saving the African environment, Africans in the last half century have been subjected to a new form of "environmental colonialism"
Robert H Nelson, The Independent Review, VIII, n1, Summer 2003
Under the banner of saving the African environment, Africans in the last half century have been subjected to a new form of "environmental colonialism"
Robert H Nelson, The Independent Review, VIII, n1, Summer 2003
From banning burqas to B&B bigots: can Europe tolerate religious tolerance?
"In few places does the free exchange of views take place on so wide a range of issues as at the Battle of Ideas. Whatever the headlines of 2011 prove to be, the Battle of Ideas is where they will be most robustly debated."
Andrew Copson, chief executive, British Humanist Association
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