A History of Private Life, Volume III: Passions of the Renaissance

Recent News

• Mother Jones asked Mary Ziegler, author of After Roe and Beyond Abortion, to explain what overturning Roe v. Wade would mean for privacy, contraception, and more.
• Carol Sanger, author of About Abortion, contributed to a Vice thought experiment tracing how a reversal of Roe v. Wade would play out for Americans over the immediate, medium, and long term.
• Snighda Poonam discussed Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World on The India Explained Podcast and Grassroots TV’s None of the Above.

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July 16: Stanley Cavell, Philosopher Untamed

Why not use the word “star,” Stanley asked in his breakthrough book on movies, The World Viewed, why not “the more beautiful and more accurate word,” rather than actor or actress? In philosophy he was a Hepburn, a Brando, a Dean, a Bacall, stars into whose souls he gave us entryways. I always thought of him and Hilary Putnam as the “glimmer twins.” Time was on their side, for so many decades, thank the lord. And on ours, too! We know he was here, and, alas, we know he’s gone now. Stanley attended monthly meetings of the Harvard University Press Board of Syndics. He dressed beautifully to attend our meetings, and he did his homework for them carefully, and spoke articulately on behalf of the books we had asked him to report on. And he would join the Press staff for or…