Introducing Dr. Small Talk
I am a writer and educator based in Oxford. I am core faculty at Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, where I was Deputy Director for nine years before stepping away to focus more on research, writing, and policy work. I’m currently a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College working on a book about the politics of risk, and the lead organizer of Risk Reconsidered, an interdisciplinary working group that brings together scholars working in the humanities, natural and social sciences.
My prior books include a study of the relationship between religion, education, and mass politics in Palestine, and an examination of jihad as a contemporary political and social phenomenon that illuminates many of the crises we face in the West as well. My essays have appeared in The New Republic, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, Jewish Currents, NYRB, New Statesman, Foreign Policy, n+1, and Aeon among other outlets.
I am naming this newsletter after my short-lived late blog, Dr. Small Talk — a reference to an art I’ve never mastered. This incapacity drives my conflict-adverse mother insane. She once interrupted a lively debate about US foreign policy by positioning herself at the head of the table and pounding on it repeatedly until silence fell. “At dinner,” she proclaimed, “we do small talk, nice talk, we talk about nice things like the weather. Small talk.” Unfortunately for my dear mother, not even the weather is a bastion of safety these days. But perhaps I can be a better dinner companion if I have a separate outlet for my thoughts about history, politics, religion, violence, and everything else she has banned from the dining table.
Readers can expect something of substance twice a month. I am a historian by training and a teacher by trade, and am more comfortable analyzing sources than offering pure punditry. I will usually bring a bit of text to unpack. This could be an archival document, a few paragraphs of scholarly work, or an advertisement. Though I have a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies, I am generalist at heart — drawn to far too many topics for a traditional academic career built upon hyper-specialization. You can expect to see all of them pop up at some time: contemporary politics, history, religion, philosophy, literature, and even the occasional film or television show.
Finally, if you detect a whiff of Great Plains progressivism in my work, that’s because I was born and raised in Chamberlain, SD, where I had my first writing job at the local paper. Thanks to Deb, if you ever read this. And thanks to you all for being here!
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