Afinogenov, Gregory, et al. "Beyond the Iron Curtain." Imaginary Worlds (March 22, 2017) ["Comrades! The USSR pioneered the craft of science fiction long before the decadent West. This is not an opinion - this is a scientific fact. Noted intellectuals Anindita Banerjee, Sibelan Forrester, Asif Siddiqi, Gregory Afinogenov and the author’s father Steven Molinsky discuss how the glorious Soviet people brought the Revolution to Mars, and used science fiction such as Aelita and Solaris to explore existential questions. Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live forever in outer space."]
Asher-Perrin, Emily, et al. "Dr. Who." Imaginary Worlds (January 24, 2018) ["We don’t know his real name. We don’t know who he was before he stole the TARDIS — a spaceship/time machine that looks like a police box on the outside, but is really a cavernous ship on the inside. He’s thousands of years old, but wears a different face every few years. He calls himself The Doctor, but Doctor who? In the first of my three-part series, I look at how a restless intergalactic time traveller became a global pop culture icon, and why The Doctor’s knack for physical regeneration resonates with fans on a more personal level."]
Baheyeldin, Khalid, et al. "The Book of Dune." Imaginary Worlds (July 12, 2017) ["Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune and its sequels tackled a lot of big themes. The books are about ecology. They’re about journeys of self-realization through mind-altering substances. But religion is at the core of the series, since the main character Paul Atreides transforms from a teenage aristocrat into a messianic revolutionary leader of a nomadic desert tribe. And the real world religion that Frank Herbert borrows from the most is Islam. Khalid Baheyeldin, Salman Sayyid, and Sami Shah discuss why the book resonated deeply with them, despite the fact that Frank Herbert wasn’t Muslim. And Liel Liebowitz explains why the novel even spoke to him as an Israeli."]
Benkler, Yochai, Robert Faris and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018. ["This book examines the shape, composition, and practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of stories and social media posts, revealing a highly polarized and asymmetric media ecosystem. Detailed case studies track the emergence and propagation of disinformation in the American public sphere that took advantage of structural weaknesses in the media institutions across the political spectrum. This book describes how the conservative faction led by Steve Bannon and funded by Robert Mercer was able to inject opposition research into the mainstream media agenda that left an unsubstantiated but indelible stain of corruption on the Clinton campaign. The authors also document how Fox News deflects negative coverage of President Trump and has promoted a series of exaggerated and fabricated counter narratives to defend the president against the damaging news coming out of the Mueller investigation. Based on an analysis of the actors that sought to influence political public discourse, this book argues that the current problems of media and democracy are not the result of Russian interference, behavioral microtargeting and algorithms on social media, political clickbait, hackers, sockpuppets, or trolls, but of asymmetric media structures decades in the making. The crisis is political, not technological."]
Hansen, Randall, Lama Mourad and Joseph Wong. "In Search of Global Freedom." Ideas (December 10, 2018) ["What does it mean to be free? All societies place restrictions on what citizens can do, but some restrictions (speed limits) may be more important than others (limiting the right to vote.) But one-size freedom doesn't really fit all: "democracy" has many faces, and ideas of freedom are shaped by culture."]
Jayapal, Pramila. "Medicare for All Will Lower Costs & Expand Healthcare Coverage to Everyone." Democracy Now (March 6, 2019) ["More than 100 Democratic lawmakers are co-sponsoring a new House bill to dramatically revamp healthcare in the United States by creating a Medicare-for-all system funded by the federal government. This comes at a time when as many as 30 million Americans have no health insurance and tens of millions more are either underinsured or struggling to pay their health insurance premiums."]
Karma, Roge. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Myth of American Innovation." The Prospect (March 6, 2019) ["The intrepid New Yorker pulls back the curtain on how private companies profit from taxpayer-funded research."]
Mounk, Yascha. "The People vs. Democracy." Ideas (December 13, 2018)
["Authoritarian populists have won elections across a large swath of western liberal democracies. Populist leaders have formed government through free and (mostly) fair elections by riding a wave of popular disaffection with the status quo. But once in power, these governments have gone on to dismantle the very institutions and conventions that help keep liberal democratic principles in place. So how are we to confront this paradox wherein liberal democracy serves a growing and undemocratic illiberalism? How do we strike a balance between the rights of individuals and the popular will? And if we can't figure this out, are the best days of the liberal democratic tradition long gone?"]
Novak, Matt. "U.S. Army Assures Public That Robot Tank System Adheres to AI Murder Policy." Gizmodo (March 6, 2019)
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