We will take a deep dive into the works of Kazuo Ishiguro, a British novelist known for his "lyrical tales of regret fused with subtle optimism". He has won the Booker Prize (1989) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (2017); the Nobel Committee cited Ishiguro “who in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” Ishiguro is a "virtuoso of restraint"; on the surface, all is harmony, but deeper down lurks troubling and unresolved truths about humanity. We will read three of his novels: An Artist of the Floating World, Never Let Me Go, and Klara and the Sun; see the film: The Remains of the Day; and sample a collection of his Short Stories: Nocturnes.
Is Civil War Coming to America?
This SDG seeks to examine the possibility of a second civil war in America and if so so how to prevent it. It makes use of two core books the first being Barbara F. Walter's How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them. Walter is a professor of international relations at the University of California-San Diego and an expert in the causes of civil wars. Her book examines the conditions in other countries that have led to the outbreak of civil war including the danger of anocracy or illiberal democracy , the rise of factions, the consequences of groups loosing status, and accelerants including social media that propel a dispute. The second book is by Stephen Marche and entitled The Next Civil War Dispatches from the American Future. Marche is a novelist and culture writer. He discusses a variety of scenarios which could give rise to the outbreak of civil war in the US. Through the use of the core books and additional materials this SDG will examine the current conditions in the US, the dangers facing the US, what a 21st century civil war in the US might look like and what can and should be done to avoid such an event.
The Digital Silk Road
Back in the mists of time, in the days when the long-forgotten David Cameron welcomed a “golden era” of Sino-British relations, western governments and companies were clear about how China’s story would unfold. As it embraced capitalism, its people would become accustomed to consumer choice. That, inevitably, would lead them to demand choice in political life. Technology, in the hands of the people, would undermine autocracy and hasten this story to its happy democratic ending. Western firms could therefore flog their technology to the Chinese with a clear conscience.
Author, Jonathan Hillman reveals what China’s expanding digital footprint looks like on the ground and explores the economic and strategic consequences of a future in which all routers lead to Beijing. What are the consequences if China becomes the world’s chief network operator? Could it could reap a commercial and strategic windfall, including many advantages currently enjoyed by the United States? Could it reshape global flows of data, finance, and communications to reflect its interests? Why is China’s digital dominance not yet assured? What are its vulnerabilities? How can the US win the battle?
Cold War Containment Strategy and Current Applications
Good strategy starts with an understanding of history. The United States is entering an era of great-power competition with China and Russia. Such global struggles happen in a geopolitical twilight, between the sunshine of peace and the darkness of war. Hal Brands, a leading historian and former Pentagon adviser, argues that America should look to the history of the Cold War for lessons in how to succeed in great-power rivalry today. Although the threat posed by authoritarian powers is growing, Brands contends that America’s muscle memory for dealing with dangerous foes has atrophied in the thirty years since the Cold War ended. If you want an option for America to win today's rivalries with Russia and China, read this book about how it triumphed in another twilight struggle: the Cold War. In this SDG we will revisit how America won a previous twilight struggle and consider if that is the starting point for determining how America can successfully prosecute another high-stakes rivalry today.
The Dawn of Everything A New History of Humanity
This SDG is based on a fascinating new best-selling book, The Dawn of Everything, a New History of Humanity, by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow. In this iconoclastic and irreverent book, they argue, with evidence, that the current prevailing theory, represented by academics such as Harari, Diamond and Fukuyama, is a myth. At its core is a story of the rise of civilization and, with it, the rise of the state, proceeding at roughly the same times linearly through time, with equivalent stages of development e.g., hunter-gatherers to the sudden development of agriculturalism and the allegedly inevitable development of agriculturalism into hierarchical communities based on inequality.
Our authors argue all this is or at least may well be wrong. They point to recent archaeological discoveries which show that early humans, far from being automatons blindly moving in evolutionary lock step in response to material pressures, but, self-consciously experimented with “a carnival parade of political forms,” with varying degrees of success. Many of those forms were not based on the inequality which we now understand to underlie our civilization. An interesting contention is that the Enlightenment had its roots in the study by European philosophers such as Rousseau of models of equality as practiced by the residents of the North American continent.
The authors sifted through evidence from 200,000 years of human history in an effort to understand how inequality began, why humans today are “stuck” in rigid, hierarchical states that would have appalled our pre-historic ancestors. They identify many civilizations which did not move in a linear way to today’s societal norms. E.g., some hunter-gatherers moved right into an urbanized state. Many experimented with other forms of governance and organization. Many fascinating examples are provided. In the Americas, some indigenous groups were agriculturalists for half the year and nomads for the other half. Though some civilizations developed bureaucracies, militaries and property regimes, others held property communally and established temporary police forces that were dissolved every few months. They describe the Minoans of Bronze Age Crete, ruled by female politicians and neighboring California and Pacific Northwest Coast civilizations, one peaceful and egalitarian, the other warlike and slave holders.
Their point is that people always reinvented themselves until they became trapped in such tight conceptual shackles that we can no longer even imagine the possibility of
reinventing ourselves. They do not suggest that equality is the norm or that it is inevitable, but that things have become so restricted as to stunt its growth and prevent experimentation.
In this SDG, we will explore the rise (and decline) of a fascinating diversity of cultures and civilizations on six of the seven continents, reason alone for taking this SDG. Those who questioned Harari’s assertion in Sapiens that agriculture enslaved humans will particularly enjoy this SDG, especially if they need persuasion as to his view of myths.
Virginia Woolf's Best Essays and Novels
Virginia Woolf was one of the two finest writers of 20th century literary Modernism (the other is James Joyce). She developed the innovative rhetorical style of "stream-of-consciousness" to a level never surpassed. And she authored two of the classics of feminist philosophy, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938). In this SDG, we will begin with an overview of her life - the daughter of an eminent literary biographer and a woman of exceptional beauty who died early, she grew up in a blended family within which she suffered both from mental disease (she was bi-polar) and sexual abuse. She became a founding member of the Bloomsbury Group (a community of economists, philosophers and artists who defined avant-garde intellectual life in Britain in the early 20th century). We will read her two feminist tracts, several of her most interesting essays and critical reviews, and three of her best-known novels: Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Between the Acts (1941), novels famous not only for their stylistic innovations but also for their searing portraits of women's lives and the cultural impact of World War I.
The 1619 Project
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story builds on The New York Times Magazine’s Pulitzer Prize winning “1619 Project,” which seeks to reframe American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of the national narrative. This book substantially expands on the original "1619 Project," weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays argue that the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and democracy itself. This legacy can be seen in the way we tell stories, the way we teach children, and the way we remember. Together, the elements of the book reveal a new origin story for the United States, one that helps explain not only the persistence of anti-Black racism and inequality in American life today, but also the roots of what makes the country unique. A New York Times best seller and named as one of the Best Books of 2021 by multiple sources.
The Mythology of the Second World War
In this SDG we will follow the recent book by Elizabeth Samet “Looking for the Good War,” a discerning new book about the gauzy mythology that has shrouded the historical reality of World War II.
According to Elizabeth Samet’s narrative, the mythology of the Second World War includes six main elements: that the US joined the war in order to rid the world of tyranny and Fascism; that “all Americans were absolutely united” in their commitment to the fight; that “everyone” in the country sacrificed; that Americans got in the war reluctantly and then waged it decently; that the war was tragic but ended on a happy note; and, finally, “that everyone has always agreed” on the first five points.
We will try to understand why the glib treatments of World War II have done real harm distorting our understanding of the past and consequently shaping how we approach the future. As “the last American military action about which there is anything like a positive consensus,” World War II is “the good war that served as prologue to three-quarters of a century of misbegotten ones.”
Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights
Except for a brief time in the 1960's when the Warren Court expanded constitutional rights and sought to limit certain types of police misconduct, both before and after the 1960's the Supreme Court has refused to enforce constitutional limits on police conduct and instead has enabled them to violate citizen's fundamental liberties. The aim of the core book and this SDG, is to examine the story of the Supreme Court's failure to enforce salient parts of the Constitution and to limit police conduct. The core book and this SDG will focus on the decisions and opinions of the Court in cases that have been decided by it to assess the Court's record in enforcing the provisions of the Constitution that are meant to constrain police, protect liberty and ensure equality. It has most often been a record of failure in its impact of on how the policing is done on a daily basis and on people's liberty, and especially the rights of people of color. Also, we will discuss, what can be done about it.
We will read and discuss the core book and pertinent Supreme Court cases cited in the book.
