Essays and Commentary
To see publication on academia.edu, click on title.

2022

(25) “Ancient Help for Modern Problems: The Case of Aristotle,” IWMpost 130, Fall/Winter 2022.

(24) “Outrageous Behaviour: The Moral Power of the Cynics,” The Point Magazine, December 12, 2022.

 

2021

(23) “Horrible heresies?” Review of Clare Carlisle’s Spinoza’s Religion, Times Literary Supplement, October 22, 2021.

 

2020

(22) “Can We Deduce Our Way To Salvation?” Boston Review, December 14, 2020.

(21) “The ancients can’t help us now,” Times Literary Supplement, June 16, 2020.

 

2019

(20) “Can Stoicism Make Us Happy?” The Nation, February 5, 2019.

 

2018

(19) “Is Germany’s new anti-Semitism really new?” Boston Review, May 22, 2018.

 

 2017

(18) “What, really, is the purpose of philosophy?”, Times Literary Supplement, September 1, 2017. 

(17) “Deprovincializing Philosophy,” in Los Angeles Review of Books, July 29, 2017.

(16) “In defence of hierarchy,” co-authored essay in Aeon, March 22, 2017. 

(15) Commentary on the Quebec mosque attack on the LRB blog, February 8, 2017.

 

2016

(14) Response to Danielle Allen in Boston Review forum on “What is Education For?”, May 9, 2016.

(13) “Imagine his dismay,” Review Essay of Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Month and Twenty-Eight Nights in the LRB 38, February 18, 2016.

 

2015

(12) “We hear and we disobey,” Review Essay of David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism and Neighboring Faiths in the London Review of Books, May 21, 2015.

(12a) “Les musulmans dans les pas des chrétiens,” French translation of (12) in Books: le monde à la lumière des livres 69, October 2015.

 

2014

(11) “A Guerrillero-Gentleman,” The Nation, January 20, 2014.
(11a) German translation of (11) Lettre International: Europas Kulturzeitung 102 (2013).
(11b) Romanian translation of (11) in Lettre International: Romania 88 (2014).
(11c) Portuguese translation of (11) in Revista Brasileiros 80 (2014).

 

2012

(10) “Spinoza in Shtreimels: An Underground Seminar,” Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2012, 38-43 (featured preview in Jewish Ideas Daily, September 4, 2012).
(10a) French translation of (10) in Books: Livres et Idées du Monde Entier 50, 26 December, 2013.

(9) “In Praise of the Clash of Cultures,” The New York Times, “The Stone” philosophy series, 2 September, 2012 (also included in The Stone Reader, Norton, 2015).
(9a) Shorter German version of (9) in Die Zeit, April 2013.

(8) “100 Days of Student Protests in Québec: Printemps Érable or Much Ado About Nothing?” Dissent, May 2012.

(7) “Citizen Philosophers: Teaching Justice in Brazil,” Boston Review, January-February 2012. One of Boston Review’s “Best Essays of 2012”
(7a) German translation of (7) in Lettre International: Europas Kulturzeitung 98 (2012).
(7b) Romanian translation of (7) in Lettre International: Romania 84 (2013).

 

2011

(6) “Divine reasoning,” Review of Jacob Howland, Plato and the Talmud for Times Literary Supplement, November 4, 2011, 32.

(5) “Does Brazil Still Need a Revolution?” Dissent, Winter 2011, 27-32.

 

2010

(4) “No body,” Review of Sarah Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker for Times Literary Supplement, November 19, 2010, 28.

 

2008

(3) “Teaching Aristotle in Indonesia,” Dissent, Summer 2008, 5-13.
(3a) “Mit Maimonides in Makassar,” Shorter German version of (3), Neue Zürcher Zeitung, July 28, 2008, “Feuilleton,” 23.
(3b) French translation of (3) in Philosophie Magazine 32 (2009).
(3c) Italian translation of (3) in Reset: Un Mese di Idee 113 (2009).

 

2007

(2) “Some Reflections on Philosophy, Democracy, and Religion,” in Refleksi: Jurnal Kajian Agama dan Filsafat 9 (2007), 1-9 (Journal of the Faculty of Islamic Theology and Philosophy of the State Islamic University in Jakarta).

(1) “Teaching Plato in Palestine,” Dissent, Spring 2007, 32-39.
(1a) German translation of (1) in Lettre International: Europas Kulturzeitung 74 (2006), 25-30.
(1b) Italian translation of (1) in Reset: Un Mese di Idee 103 (2007), 48-54.