Psychic Numbing

For Robert Jay Lifton, treating veterans’ trauma was an antiwar tool. How did PTSD, the diagnosis he helped create, come to accommodate state violence?

The Bonfire of the Words

“If ideas are discarded when no longer modish, could we not do the same with unfashionable words?”

Who’s Afraid of Frantz Fanon?

Long decried by liberals and conservatives alike, the Martinican psychiatrist remains one of the most piercing critics of colonialism.

Two Photographs

The first capturing your gaze into nowhere
the other when you covered your face with your hands
so you were not anonymous, only unseen

Three Poems

a sunset makes a sound doesn’t it
I learned    too late

Naming the Unnamed War

Bertrand Tavernier’s daring documentary about the Algerian revolution sought to break the silence in France.

A Menacing Silence

Why is the reality of Palestinian suffering denied in the Israeli consciousness?