Contributing Editor, The Liberal and Logos: A Journal of Modern Society & Culture
Member, Organizing Committee, The Past and Future(s) of Revolution: A Global Exploration
My book, Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran (published by Prickly Paradigm Press), is available for sale here or here
is nothing less than a masterpiece of moral and political criticism."— Afshin Molavi, author of The Soul of Iran
"The importance of Postel's book
reaches far beyond a mere exercise in intellectual history. The temptation is either to castigate Iran as a state run by dangerous fundamentalist fanatics, or to celebrate it as a beacon of anti-imperialist resistance. Both approaches miss the complexity of intellectual and political life in Iran where, in a unique short-circuit, political battles reverberate in the terms of modern Western philosophy: some traditionalist clerics refer to Heidegger, liberals to Habermas, feminists to Arendt, some young 'nihilists' to deconstruction.... The specter of an exotic country is thus dispelled, and we can recognize in Iran our own battles, fought more passionately than in our own countries. This is Postel's great lesson: Iran's story is our own."— Slavoj Žižek
Danny Speaks
The Specter Haunting Iran
I was honored to be invited to participate in the extraordinary conference Iran: Politics of Resistance held February 12 at the New School for Social Research in New York. The conference took its name and inspiration from Simon Critchley's hugely interesting book Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, and Critchley chaired and moderated the conference's opening panel.
Video of the entire conference is available at the above links and also on YouTube. My talk is here and also appears as an essay on the website Tehran Bureau.
Dialogue
A Response to my Interlocutors
A follow-up piece to my essay in the July/August New Humanist on religion and raising my children, in which I engage some of the most interesting and though-provoking responses I received to the original article. Among those to whom I respond are the sociologist Robert Bellah (author of Habits of the Heart), the poet Martín Espada (author of City of Coughing and Dead Radiators), the cultural critic Marshall Berman (author of All That Is Solid Melts into Air), and the philosopher Roger Scruton (author of A Short History of Modern Philosophy, among many other books).
General Delivery
Outstanding new issue of Logos
The Summer 2009 issue of Logos (a journal of which I am proud to be a contributing editor) contains an interview I conducted with the Iranian political scientist Hossein Bashiriyeh about recent events in Iran. It provides some of the most in-depth analysis of those events yet to appear (at least in English).
But there are several other treasures on offer in the new issue: Mark Luccarelli's "From Revolution to a New Global System: Reflections on the Breakdown of 'Globalization' and the Future(s) of the International Order", Mike Lynn's "The Revolution is Upon Us: The Age of Crisis and the End of Homo Economicus", and David Mason's "Entering a Systemic Revolution", among others. I'm pleased to have had a hand in these three pieces: they are each based on presentations at The Past and Future(s) of Revolution, a conference I helped organize back in March.
Logos is a phenomenal publication. You can join the journal's Facebook group here.
From the archives
Remembering Leszek Kolakowski
The great Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski has died at the age of 81. I had the pleasure of interviewing Kolakowski in late 2004 for the journal Daedalus. That interview -- titled "On exile, philosophy & tottering insecurely on the edge of an unknown abyss" -- is available as a PDF here.
Essay
The Anxiety of (Religious) Influence
I have an essay in the July/August 2009 issue of the London-based New Humanist magazine in which I lay bare my anxieties about being a secular father whose children go to church with their Catholic mother.
It's the most personal thing I've ever written. It's sparked quite a lively discussion, both on the New Humanist blog and at AlterNet, which reprinted the essay. Feel free to join the fray on either site.
Danny Recommends
Conferring about Revolution
I'm excitedly engrossed in organizing a major four-day conference March 9-12 at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago called The Past and Future(s) of Revolutions: A Global Exploration. Among the speakers will be Ron Aronson, author of After Marxism; John Foran, editor of The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalization; Edward Friedman, author of Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in Village China; Doris Garraway, editor of Tree of Liberty: Cultural Legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World; Karen Kampwirth, author of Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas; Friedrich Katz, author of The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution; Stephen Kinzer, author of Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua; James Le Sueur, editor of The Decolonization Reader; David Mason, author of Revolutionary Europe, 1789–1989: Liberty, Equality, Solidarity; Julie Mertus, author of Human Rights Matters: Local Politics and National Human Rights Institutions; Val Moghadam, author of Globalization and Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice Movement; Misagh Parsa, author of States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Nicaragua, and the Philippines; Jonathan Schell, author of A Hole in the World: An Unfolding Story of War, Protest and the New American Order. I'll be chairing the keynote panels (7:00 PM) on Wednesday, March 11 and Thursday, March 12. Mark your calendars!
