01 Nov
2012 November-December, Interview, U.S. Politics, Women

The Madeleine Effect

Madeleine Albright became secretary of state in 1997. Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton followed. Has foreign policy become women’s work? There’s a story Madeleine Albright likes to tell. She tells it to reporters, colleagues, students and friends—and halfway through our conversation, she tells it to me. “My youngest granddaughter,” she says, “when she turned seven a couple of years ago, said, ‘So what’s the big deal about Grandma Maddie being secretary of state? Only girls are secretary of state.’” The anecdote, which has become so much a part of Albright’s mythology that nearly everyone recounts it to me, signifies the enormous progress women have made in the past 15 years since Albright became the first female secretary of state and the highest-ranking woman in government in U.S. history. Women’s leadership is now so accepted that it obscures...

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01 Nov
2012 November-December, Culture, Interview

2012 Emerging Writers

Meet Johanna Adorján and Adam Schwartz, winners of Moment's annual Emerging Writer awards celebrating up-and-coming literary voices.   Fiction winner Adam Schwartz Adam Schwartz  is a senior lecturer of creative writing at Wellesley College whose fiction has appeared in The New Yorker. A Stranger on the Planet follows the life of Seth Shapiro from a mid-century New Jersey adolescence through his tumultuous adult life. Q| What inspired the book?   A| After my mother read a draft, she replied, “I love the way you capture all my meshugas but humanize me at the same time.” Leave it to my mother to articulate my aesthetic principles so eloquently. The creative impulse is deeply humanistic, to create art that reminds us of what it means to be human. Creating that tension between a character’s meshugas and their humanity is what inspires me.   Q| Why did you...

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18 May
Book Review, Culture, Interview, Latest, Religion

The New Religious Intolerance: An Interview with Martha Nussbaum

By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil From Switzerland’s ban on minarets, to France’s ban on headscarves, and the controversy that raged over Park 51, the “Ground Zero Mosque” in lower Manhattan, religious fear is on the rise, writes Martha Nussbaum. In her latest book, The New Religious Intolerance, the University of Chicago law professor tackles the politics of fear, and lays out a roadmap for society to overcome its fear of the other, which she warns, “currently disfigure all Western societies.” To learn more, Moment spoke with Nussbaum about religious fear, anti-Semitism, burqas, Mitt Romney’s Mormonism and more. MM: You write, “We should be worried about the upsurge in religious fear and animosity in the United States, as well as in Europe. Fear is accelerating, and we need to try to understand it to think how best to address...

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31 Jan
Interview, Religion

A Moment With…Omar Sacirbey

By Sarah Breger A June 2011 Pew poll found that 76 percent of Muslim Americans approved of President Obama’s performance in the White House—a figure far above the national average. The Muslim American community also voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates in 2004 and in 2008, a major shift from 2000, when more than three-quarters voted for Republican George W. Bush. Despite these numbers, many Muslims are disillusioned with the president and the changes they believe he promised but hasn’t delivered. While the Muslim electorate is far from monolithic, and its numbers make up just a small fraction of the country’s population, Muslim voting power may prove significant in a close election. Moment’s managing editor Sarah Breger speaks with Omar Sacirbey, a Boston-based correspondent for the Religion News Service and other publications, on this often-overlooked portion of the...

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19 Jan
Interview, Religion, U.S. Politics

Romney and Mormonism

By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil While Mitt Romney has secured his front-runner status in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, questions about his religion still linger in many people’s minds—Will evangelical Christians vote for him? How would a Mormon act as president? And what do Mormons really believe? For a closer look at the intersection of Mormonism and American politics, Moment speaks with journalist and religion scholar Joanna Brooks. A veteran of the Mormon feminist and LGBT movements, Brooks covers Mormonism, faith and politics for ReligionDispatches.org. She is author of American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures, and was named one of “50 Politicos to Watch” by Politico.com. MM: What are the biggest misconceptions about Mormonism today? JB: Surveys show that a large portion of everyday Americans still imagine that contemporary Mormons practice polygamy....

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