Crimson staff writer
Ari R. Hoffman
Latest Content
The Difficulty of Stepping Away
Besides their ages, Philip Roth and Pope Benedict XVI would appear to have little in common. The mischievous, secular, and oft-profane Jewish-American literary provocateur and the sophisticated theologian, the staunchly traditional Bishop of Rome, seem cut from entirely different cloth. But each of these men recently made rather surprising announcements that were remarkably similar: They were retiring, stepping down and away from occupations that have historically been considered lifetime positions.
Collaboration and its Discontents
What is the role of others in our own intellectual development?
The Young Obama
On Wednesday, President Obama did one of the most courageous things I have ever seen a president do; on the eve of a hotly contested election to be decided by a few swing states, he declared his personal support for gay marriage.
Our Blessing, Our Curse
One of the great innovations of the modern world is not only how many different types of things we have, but also how useful those things have become.
Our Etch A Sketch Moment
The image of the Etch A Sketch, with its interlocking resonances of writing and erasure, composition and blankness, is a plastic and aluminum (no, not sand) aperture into the consistently bedeviling problem of constancy in our politics.
The Hunger Games: Report from a Phenomenon
In an age where the book is more often a subject of eulogy than praise, what does “The Hunger Games” have to tell us about how and why we read today?
In Defense of Snobbery
Ideally, college should perform the inverse of the process Santorum describes.
So Much to Say
The ability to have your voice be “heard” has expanded exponentially, as if hundreds of millions of people were given free megaphones.
