by Pauline Park 23andme tells me I’m Korean, Chinese and Japanese, but in fact, while I was born in Korea, I have no Korean genes or any Chinese or Japanese DNA either; and therein hangs a tale… I came across this curious map (http://brilliantmaps.com/europe-dna-borders/ “If European Borders Were Drawn By DNA Instead of Ethnicity,” 25 […]
Tolkien & “The Silmarillion”: cultural influences & mythopoeia in the shaping of an epic by Pauline Park “The Silmarillion” is J.R.R. Tolkien’s longest work and arguably his most complex; it is the work that took Tolkien the longest to write and remained unfinished at the time of his death, to be put together as a […]
LGBT rights & progressive politics in the age of Trump Pauline Park LGBTQ Symposium York College City University of New York 29 November 2018 I’m honored by the invitation to speak to you today and keynote this LGBTQ symposium at York College. I’d like to begin by thanking Prof. Larry Tung for helping to arrange […]
Nancy Pelosi & the LGBT political establishment: the dynamics of community representation in a corrupted political system by Pauline Park After two years of raging against Donald Trump, Democrats retook the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections on 6 November 2018, gaining “a net total of at least 37 seats, 14 more than the […]
Danni Askini: Trump’s first trans refugee is seeking asylum in Sweden: here’s why you should care by Pauline Park The word ‘refugee’ conjures up images of people of color fleeing war, persecution and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and other poor and war-torn regions of the world; someone like Danni Askini would be the […]
Berlin: living a moment in history on the Tag der deutschen Einheit (3 Oktober 1990) by Pauline Park Germans celebrated the Tag der deutschen Einheit on 3 October 2018 with considerable less enthusiasm than they did the original Day of German Unity back in 1990; twenty-eight years later, many might not recall the extraordinary euphoria that […]
Avital Ronell & Judith Butler: a cautionary tale of power & accountability in academiaby Pauline Park 2017 was the year of reckoning for men who had long engaged in sexual harassment with impunity. Ronan Farrow broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s long and sordid history of sexual harassment and sexual assault as the most powerful […]
Emmanuel Macron’s preference for Danish Lutherans over recalcitrant Gauls tells us more than one might think by Pauline Park Emmanuel Macron won the presidential election in May 2017 in good part because his opponent was the right-wing extremist Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the far right-wing Front National and daughter of the party’s founder, […]
Zephyr Teachout is the progressive choice for New York state attorney general by Pauline Park Eric Schneiderman abruptly resigned as attorney general of the state of New York in May without just a few hours of revelations of physical and sexual abuse in his relationships with several different women (David A. Graham, “It Took Eric […]
John McCain wasn’t the anti-Trump & wasn’t anything like the image the mainstream media created for him by Pauline Park “In many ways, McCain was the anti-Trump: a supporter of a values-based West, a defender of democracy and human rights, an advocate of civilized debate and bipartisan cooperation — a true hero, someone who did […]
Cynthia Nixon vs. Andrew Cuomo: vote for the homo not the Cuomo by Pauline Park Cynthia Nixon’s challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo is generating attention for many reasons, not least because the former “Sex & the City” star brings Hollywood celebrity to what otherwise might be a dull and uncontested re-election campaign by […]
Israel vs. Palestine: 10 key points about public discourse by Pauline Park 1) ‘Israel’ vs. ‘Palestine.’ There are many ways of referring to the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River; perhaps the most value-neutral is ‘Israel/Palestine,’ which has the advantage of recognizing the reality that there is in fact now one state in […]