Amia Srinivasan is the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford and a contributing editor at the LRB. Her first book, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the 21st Century, was published in 2021. The title essay was first published in the LRB as ‘Does anyone have the right to sex?’ She’s also written for the paper on subjects including free speech on campus, pronouns, octopuses, bestiality and sharks.
At the Rhodes Scholarship interview, candidates are often asked how they intend to ‘fight the world’s fight’, a phrase inherited from the scholarship’s founder, Cecil Rhodes. The exceeding ambition that has always been demanded of Rhodes scholars takes its cue from Rhodes’s own imperial fantasies: ‘Why should we not form a secret society with but one...
The Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have just announced the birth of their first child, a daughter named Max. Procreation has apparently turned Zuckerberg’s thoughts towards his legacy. In ‘A letter to our daughter’ posted (where else?) on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg explains that he and Chan want their daughter to ‘grow up in a better world than ours today’. The post was ‘liked’ by more than a million people, including Melinda Gates, Shakira and Martha Stewart. In response to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s congratulations, Zuckerberg wrote that Max ‘is clearly going to be a Lean In girl!’, referring to Sandberg’s 2013 handbook for women who aspire to be CEOs.
Philosophers may talk about justice or rights, but they don’t often try to reshape the world according to their ideals. A new generation of moral philosophers is determined to break with this tradition of ineffectuality. The goal of the ‘effective altruists’ is not only to theorise the world, but to use their theories to leave the world a better place than they found it. Their leader is William MacAskill, a 28-year-old lecturer at Oxford.
At Crufts last week, as a five-year-old Scottish Terrier called Knopa (who competes under the name ‘McVan’s to Russia with Love’) was being awarded Best in Show, a protester stormed the floor holding a sign that read ‘Mutts against Crufts’, before being dragged off by security staff. PETA explained that the protest was against the practice of pedigree breeding, which leads to chronic health problems in purebred dogs as well as the neglect of mixed-breed dogs. (The BBC dropped its coverage of Crufts in 2008 after the Kennel Club refused to exclude from the competition some breeds particularly at risk because of generations of inbreeding.)
The Counterterrorism and Security Bill 2014-15 has all but completed its swift passage into law. Sponsored by Theresa May and Lord Bates of the Home Office, it promises to expand the state’s paranoid reach in predictable ways: new powers to seize passports and bar UK citizens from returning home; a requirement that internet service providers collect data on users; a provision that airlines and rail and shipping companies may have to seek permission from the Home Office to carry certain groups of people.
Amia Srinivasan discusses the UK’s recent appointment of a ‘free speech tsar’, whether students are increasingly leaning left and how activists across the political spectrum weaponise the concept...
Amia Srinivasan talks to Thomas Jones about the long search for a third person singular, gender-neutral pronoun, and the resurgence of the pronoun debate in recent years.
Leïla Slimani talks to Amia Srinivasan about her latest book Sex and Lies, which departs from fiction to explore the lives of and give a voice to the young women of Morocco, struggling to survive and...
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