• Profile half-length photograph of a man facing to the left wearing a dark jacket and tie, holding a cigarette in his hand, with a white handkerchief in his jacket breast pocket. The man has a prominent straight nose, slicked back hair and his tie forms a slight arch from the knot. In the background, on the left side of the image, there is another half-length frontal portrait of a man. He has white hair, also wears a jacket and tie, is looking to the right, and is smiling.

Remembering Sarah Kofman in the 2020s?

By Jacob Bates-Firth Sarah Kofman and the Relief of Philosophy (ed. Bates-Firth and McKeane) is out now as a special issue of Paragraph, 44:1 (March 2021) and concurrently in book form with Edinburgh University Press. Backdrop When John and I began to…

Young people and activism

By Niall Nance-Carroll Young people are a coveted demographic in politics, and they are increasingly shaping both the message and the movement of progressives. Far from being the “youth wing” of a larger adult-led activist movement (indeed, one of the…

Photograph of the US Capitol at night

Spinoza and democracy in peril

By Dan Taylor In October 2020, in the days leading up to the US Presidential Election, over 130 leading historians of fascism signed an open letter. They warned that democracy today is deeply imperilled. It is either ‘withering or in…

detail of La Passionara

The Scots at Jarama

By Fraser Raeburn On this day 84 years ago, Scottish soldiers went into battle. For most of them, it was for the very first time – and for many, it would also be their last. Throughout modern Scottish history, this…

Remembering the history of Scottish land reform

By Ewen Cameron I was delighted to publish Freshness, Freedom, and Peace?: Land Settlement in Scotland after the Great War  in Northern Scotland, 2nd series, 11.2 (2020), 161–75. This was a special issue arising from a stimulating conference held at…