In our first forum of 2016, Jedediah Purdy accepts that there is no longer a nature independent of human meddling—so how then, he asks, do we make that condition more democratic? Alisa Reznick reports on how clean water is being used as a weapon in Syria’s civil war, and David G. Victor questions whether university divestment from fossil fuels really brings us closer to a greener future. In an arresting personal essay, Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey reports on an experiment in the humane raising and butchering of pigs. Also, Nick Bromell asks whether we should enshrine dignity as a critical democratic right, Robert Archambeau reviews two new collections from Charles Simic, and more.
Forum
The New Nature
JEDEDIAH PURDY DEBATES
JO GULDI, JAIRUS GROVE, ROBERT PAARLBERG, ANDREAS MALM, DAVID KEITH, ANNA TSING, UGO MATTEI, VANDANA SHIVA, PAUL WALDAU, AND ROY SCRANTON.
Foundations
Dispatch: Weaponizing Syria’s Water
Made in America: Survey Says . . .
Books & Ideas
Carbon on Campus
To Be and To Do: Giorgio Agamben’s L’uso dei corpi. Homo sacer, IV, 2
Beyond Freedom and Equality: The Democratic Value of Dignity
On Poetry
Poet’s Sampler
Uyen Hua introduced by Chris Nealon
