Shamus Khan is professor and chair of sociology at Columbia University and the editor of Public Culture.
Shamus Khan
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Writing on Public Books
The Big Picture: Unholy Alliances
Andrew Jackson had good reason to believe that his first presidential election, of 1824, had been rigged. He had won the popular vote but not an Electoral College majority. Jackson was hated by elite political players. The Tennessean’s crass demeanor, uneducated manner, and disconnection from the dominant elite strongholds of Massachusetts and Virginia—all previous presidents […]
Our Broken-Windows Approach to Sexual Misconduct
In 1957 Clifford Kirkpatrick and Eugene Kanin published some of the first work on “Male Sex Aggression on a University Campus.” Their survey of college women found …
Diversity Doublespeak
Goldman Sachs values many things—money most of all—but you might be glad to hear that it also values diversity. “We strive for excellence,” they tell their clients and potential employees. “To achieve it, we must have the best people, and the best people are drawn from the broadest pool of applicants.” Goldman is not alone. […]
Democracy in France: The Intellectual Context of Tocqueville’s Masterwork
As the revolutionary age transformed Europe and the New World, among the few prominent instances of global stability, or so it has frequently been asserted, was the special relationship between France and America. The French, after all, were instrumental to the result of the American war for independence;1sk the travelled inhabitant of any nation, In what country […]
Virtual Panel on Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats
Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (Penguin, 2012) was published to high acclaim and controversy in the fall. At the live Public Books panel in December, Freeland joined three distinguished scholars of economic inequality to discuss the causes and consequences of the new global super-rich […]
