Stanford University Press Blog

Making Sense of Love

Much more than a feeling, love explains how we understand our world and each other.

by PAUL A. KOTTMAN

The Fall of Man, 1616. Painted by Hendrick Goltzius.

Over the past generation or so, with astonishing rapidity, widespread social opposition to same-sex marriage has evaporated in many parts of the world. Reliable and effective birth control has become increasingly available to individuals around the globe. Millions of women, in the past century, have gained the ability to safely and legally terminate a pregnancy at will. New reproductive technologies, along with new kinship formations, make the propagation of life and the raising of children seem less and less the result of sexual reproduction.

At the same time, in many places, we are living through one of the most profound social transformations in human history: the erosion of a gender-based division of labor. The tidal waves of political and philosophical feminism, and the critiques to which entrenched institutions of sexual domination are subjected, are being felt throughout society. Behind this lies the expanded social authority of lovemaking and “love-based” commitments, in our laws governing everything from marriage and domestic economic life, to the adoption of children, to our schools and medical practices. Virtually no social, civic or political institution is being left untouched by these vast changes.

The sheer pace of social change often outstrips our explanations for it.

In the face of ongoing violence, naked prejudice, social crisis, regressive politics and institutionalized oppression around the world—much of which arises in response to the developments just mentioned—we may hesitate to trumpet this list of achievements too loudly. Nevertheless, the immense social transformations just mentioned are real and vast.

In Memory of Alan Mintz

Mintz’s commitment to Hebrew literature came through powerfully in his writing.

Select works of Alan Mintz. Photo by Kalie Caetano.

Last week, the field of Jewish Studies lost an influential scholar whose work leaves a lasting impression on the study of Hebrew literature. Alan Mintz passed away on May 20, just a few weeks before the planned publication of his latest book, a major critical study of S.Y. Agnon’s A City in Its Fullness.

We at Stanford University Press were grateful for the opportunity to work with Alan Mintz, whose intellectual commitment to interpreting and advocating for the importance of Hebrew literature came through powerfully in his writing. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the larger community of Alan’s colleagues, students, friends, and family who will keenly feel his loss.

Here, we share remembrances of Alan from current and former editors of the Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture series who worked with Alan throughout the years.

 

—STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

From the Vote to the Vatican

In the Trump era, the relationship between Catholics and U.S. politics is complicated.

by MANLIO GRAZIANO

Donald Trump and Pope Francis. Image by DonkeyHotey. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

The November election showed a major shift in the Catholic vote: for the first time since 1968, the majority of Catholics did not vote in the same way as the majority of Americans. In 1968, the majority of Catholics voted for Hubert Humphrey, while the majority of the popular vote went, as we know, to Richard Nixon (though Humphrey lost almost 20 percentage points to the Republicans as compared to the 1964 elections). Even in 2000, Catholics voted in the same way as the majority of their fellow citizens: 51% of them chose Al Gore, who was eventually defeated by the Electoral College system. This identity between “Catholic vote” and popular vote has led many observers to state that a “Catholic vote” simply does not exist, or even that “Catholics are the bellwether voters: as go Catholics, so goes the nation.”

Last November, the majority of Catholics voted by a comfortable majority (55%) for the candidate who collected only a minority of the popular vote (46.1%), a difference of about nine percentage points. This is a noteworthy change, one that signals at least two things: first, that the Catholic hierarchy did not challenge Donald Trump, despite what certain statements made by Pope Francis during the campaign had led people to think; and second, that there is a majority of Catholics in the United States who want to carve their social, and therefore political, advancement in stone. And that these two phenomena influence each other.

Last November, the majority of Catholics voted by a comfortable majority for the candidate who collected only a minority of the popular vote.

 

In Rome We Trust » reveals how Catholics have come to play an increasingly significant role in American politics.

This thirst for social advancement can be explained in the following way: since the end of the World War II, Catholics have climbed the social ladder, achieving the pre-eminent role in the political life of the country that I describe in my new book, In Rome We Trust. The result is that they now have dreams of overcoming the traditional social hierarchy that identifies America with WASPs. Some of them want to see a “De-WASPing of America’s Power Elite,” as Robert C. Christopher puts it in Crashing the Gates–something achieved in the Supreme Court before the death of Antonin Scalia, when three Jews and six Catholics made up the country’s most important judicial body. Others (now clearly a majority) on the contrary, aspire to join the WASP ranks, thus distinguishing not from the WASPs themselves, but from those Catholics who remain on the lowest rungs of the social ladder, essentially, recent immigrants from Latin America and the Philippines. The most radical wing of this latter group has pushed its “WASP-ing” agenda to the point of abandoning Catholicism for militant evangelicalism (Mike Pence, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, and Neil Gorsuch are the best known examples).

Modern Politics in Premodern History

How national narratives have obscured the history of India’s most controversial king.

by AUDREY TRUSCHKE

This portrait of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb mounted on a horse, and ready for battle, was originally produced circa 1660.

In 1700, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was arguably the richest, most powerful man in the world. He ruled for nearly fifty years, from 1658 until 1707, over a vast empire in South Asia that boasted a population exceeding the entirety of contemporary Europe. Today, he has been forgotten in the West.

The Mughal Empire at Aurangzeb’s death in 1707. Reproduced with permission from Juggernaut Books.

In modern-day India, however, Aurangzeb is alive in public debates, national politics, and people’s imaginations. From Mumbai to Delhi to Hyderabad, Indians debate his legacy and, overwhelmingly, condemn him as the cruelest king in Indian history. The list of charges against Aurangzeb is severe and, if they were all true, shocking. Aurangzeb, a Muslim, is widely thought to have destroyed thousands of Hindu temples, forced millions of Indians to convert to Islam, and enacted a genocide of Hindus. As I am reminded daily on Twitter, many Indians sincerely believe that Aurangzeb was Hitler and ISIS rolled into one with a single objective: To eradicate Hindus and Hinduism.

My narrative of Aurangzeb in Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India’s Most Controversial King—based on extensive research and relying on primary source documents—does not match his current reputation. Accordingly, much of the response to Aurangzeb in India, published in February 2017 under the title Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth, has been fierce. I am the target of daily, sometimes hourly, hate speech on social media. I am regularly attacked on the basis of my gender, nationality, race, and perceived religion. I have even faced (so far, limited) calls to ban Aurangzeb and even to ban me from India. In this blog post, I explore the roots of the controversy over Aurangzeb, my role therein as a historian, and the harsh realities of producing historical analysis in a world where many privilege politically expedient falsehoods.

Negotiating North Korea

Given the mixed results of the past, could sanctions work on North Korea moving forward?

by STEPHAN HAGGARD and MARCUS NOLAND

"North Korea Victory Day." Photo by Stefan Krawsowski. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

Following the Mar-a-Lago summit, President Trump touted his cooperation with President Xi Jinping on North Korea as a diplomatic win. In the weeks since the summit, the outlines of the administration’s policy toward the peninsula have become more clear. Under the name of “maximum pressure and engagement,” Secretary Tillerson has outlined a strategy that includes more aggressive sanctions, while leaving military options open. Yet at the same time, he has promised that the United States would be willing to engage in negotiations—long a Chinese demand—were North Korea to express a willingness to discuss denuclearization. He has even stated that the United States is not seeking regime change nor unification and could provide North Korea security guarantees.

Hard Target » captures the effects of sanctions and inducements on North Korea and provides a detailed reconstruction of the role of economic incentives in the bargaining around the country's nuclear program.

The history of such two-track efforts, which have resurfaced repeatedly since the first North Korean nuclear crisis some 25 years ago, are often plagued by complications that undermine the strategy. In Hard Target: Sanctions, Inducements, and the Case of North Korea, we investigate the history of these efforts, which are dogged by two problems. The first is that sanctions require coordination. At various times the United States has faced difficulty aligning not only China, but South Korea as well, around more robust pressure on the North. Since the onset of the second nuclear crisis in 2002, multilateral and other sanctions have had the perverse effect of pushing North Korea’s trade toward China, which now accounts for nearly 90 percent of bilateral merchandise trade. The changing geography of trade compounds these coordination problems. Getting North Korea to move has increasingly become a question of how to get China to move.

Xi Jinping’s decision to cooperate with the United States with respect to North Korea was also influenced in part by US sticks and carrots. Military blandishments might have helped spur China’s new engagement on the issue, reminding Beijing that North Korea is a strategic liability. The decision to abjure naming China a currency manipulator and threats of secondary sanctions—placing sanctions on Chinese entities doing business with North Korea—also might have had some effect. But the basis of cooperation with China undoubtedly rests on US commitments to re-enter negotiations if North Korea signals interest, with the inevitable discussion of quid-pro-quos and inducements that such negotiations necessarily entail.

Modern Iran in 8 Songs

From classical melodies to rap, Iran’s music reveals its long struggle for political freedom.

by NAHID SIAMDOUST

Public domain via Pixabay.

 

Soundtrack of the Revolution » offers a striking account of Iranian culture, politics, and social change to provide an alternative history of the Islamic Republic.

Music was one of the first casualties of the Iranian Revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini decreed early on that music was “opium for the masses” and so it was banned in 1979. But music has deep roots in Iranian culture and quickly crept back into public life. Indeed, in the absence of a free official public sphere, music has offered one of the most important vehicles for political expression in the face of government repression, creating a channel of mass communication that has transformed public culture within the limits of an authoritarian state. At the same time, Iranian music tells the story of the evolution of the state itself, from a severe republic of mourning to one that allows for a certain type of controlled fun. Now more than thirty-five years on from the revolution, both the children of the revolution and their music have come of age and the art they have produced offers a striking account of Iranian culture, politics, and social change. Taken together, the eight songs below shed light on issues at the heart of debates in Iran—about its future and identity, the quest for political freedom, and changing notions of religiosity.