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About John Torpey

John Torpey teaches sociology, history, and European studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Articles by John Torpey

Tuesday 21st January

The entrepreneurs of memory

John Torpey, 21 January 2003
Does the worldwide concern with public apology represent a turning of society’s face towards the past, one that closes the possibility of imagining a better future?
Friday 14th September

Bloody Tuesday

John Torpey, 14 September 2001
At this stage in globalising history “America” has come to be seen by many as a stand-in for the “cosmopolitanism” that was once associated with Jews. “America” represents some kind of soulless, materialistic, rootless way of life that they detest.
Wednesday 29th August

The past after the future

John Torpey, 29 August 2001
As grand visions of national and social freedom have collapsed, the losers of history compete to seek recompense for past injustice. This tidal wave of “memory” and “reparation” is also a turning away from the hope of progress. Can our engagement with the past be connected to the imagining of a better future?
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