Hillary and Michelle: Urban Dancing and the Metaphysics of the Home
“If you can’t control your own house, how will you be able to control the White House?” – Michelle Obama, 2007 presidential campaign speech The word “economy” descends from the ancient Greek word oikonomia, meaning ‘law of the home.’ Whereas the market can be considered to be an institution whose main task is the preservation and [...]
I-Banker’s Hours, Non-Profit Pay, Totally Rational
This article was solicited by the Amherst College Economics Department to highlight the work of some of its alumni. An edited portion of it was printed in its recently released Handbook. I, for one, think that it’s completely rational to work for non-profit pay with a degree that prepared me for investment banking. While I [...]
![By Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, Jessica C. Smith. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.stateofformation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/640px-US_poverty_rate_timeline1-145x115.gif)
Liberty and (Economic) Justice for All
I’ve been rejoicing to witness our US presidential election campaign narrative turning to economics, thanks to a contender with a background in the private equity business (or, vulture capitalism, as it is known to some). At the same time, I continue to feel great anguish that poverty and our nation’s and earth’s most impoverished have [...]
More Immigrants, Please
Cross-posted at my personal blog. The AP is reporting that the Obama administration will stop deporting youths who are DREAM Act eligible. This is unambiguously good news unless you’re upset that a key Democratic voting bloc (Latinos) might be more prone to support the President going into the 2012 election. I’m enthusiastically supporting this policy, [...]
In Defense of an Undergraduate Education
Bill Bonner’s diatribe against undergraduate education at UVA in the name of Thomas Jefferson and Rabbi HIllel demonstrates the same lazy habits of thinking and writing that I try to drill out of my first year undergraduates. Here’s what he could learn from reading R. Hillel more closely.
American Economic Morality in Crisis
Being a graduate student with a family has brought many challenges, such as when my daughter decided to be born two weeks early and therefore two days before a scheduled oral exam. (My committee kindly agreed to postpone.) But the economic challenges have perhaps been most acute.
Contributing Scholars
Hilary J. ScarsellaHilary J. Scarsella is a life-long Mennonite with a deep love for learning about and from other faiths. She did her undergraduate work at Indiana University in religious studies, philosophy, and the Arabic language before obtaining a Master of Divinity from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in theology, ethics, and peace studies. Hilary developed a passion for international solidarity work as a reservist with Christian Peacemaker Teams in northern Iraq, and her work in the U.S. has been deeply influenced by walking with women striving to heal from abuse and sexual violence. Currently, Hilary is Associate for Transformative Peacemaking & Communications with Mennonite Church USA and looking toward Ph.D work. Living in northern Indiana as a member of the Prairie Wolf Collective, she enjoys spunk and laughter and creativity gone wild.
Sara Williams StaleySara is a student at Yale Divinity School, where she is working toward a Master of Religious Studies with a concentration in ethics. Her research interest lies broadly in the role of faith communities in religiously charged conflicts and more particularly in the conversation between American evangelical and postliberal theologies as it relates to the construction of an evangelical ethic for interreligious engagement.
Leslie HilgemanLeslie Hilgeman is a fifth-year student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, to be ordained as a rabbi in June 2013. She also serves as student rabbi of Congregation Am Haskalah of Allentown/Bethlehem, PA. Since joining rabbinical school, her passion for inter-religious engagement has led her into inter-seminary workshops and classrooms, organizing inter-seminary student programs, internship work at the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia, social-justice delegations to four countries, interfaith prayer and blessing circles, conferences and occasional blogging. Previous to her rabbinical studies, Leslie held a 15-year career as a foreign correspondent and editor, mostly covering business and technology in Latin America & the Caribbean.