Jim Sleeper

Jim Sleeper, a writer and teacher on American civic culture and politics and a lecturer in political science at Yale, is the author of 'The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York' (W.W. Norton, 1990) and 'Liberal Racism' (Viking, 1997, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). More of his articles and commentary are available at jimsleeper.com.

Safe spaces – a view from Yale

There are two aspects of the US college protests which we leave out of account at our peril if we are to see them in context, let alone judge them. Interview.

By Jim Sleeper and Rosemary Bechler

/ 11 Jan 2016

Lee Kuan Yew’s hard truths

Lee’s concoction of “Asian values” was meant partly to deter westerners from criticizing repressive regimes.

By Jim Sleeper

/ 2 Apr 2015

On election day, let Texas voters tip their hats to Hong Kong

On November 4, long lines of unarmed Texas voters can salute American democracy’s counterparts and admirers abroad simply by showing up in huge numbers at the polls.

By Jim Sleeper

/ 23 Oct 2014

New shots heard 'round the world

A somewhat bleak survey of American democratic prospects for this American Independence Day begins by reminding us what America was meant to be all about.

By Jim Sleeper

/ 4 Jul 2014

Jonathan Schell: in memoriam

The writer who taught courses at Yale on non-violence and nuclear arms through 2012 and who died Tuesday night, at 70, of cancer, in his home in Brooklyn, was a luminous, noble bearer of an American civic-republican tradition inherently cosmopolitan and embracing.

By Jim Sleeper

/ 27 Mar 2014

Singapore migrants riot, websites chill, but Yale-in-Singapore keeps warm

The fallout from these abuses of labor and freedom of speech casts a long shadow on Yale-NUS' hopes to become an international hub for liberal education.

By Jim Sleeper

/ 12 Dec 2013

Globe-trotting universities serve diplomacy and markets, not democracy

American liberal arts colleges are embracing collaborations with authoritarian regimes worldwide, with implications for US foreign policy. Following up his op-ed in the New York Times on Sunday, Jim Sleeper reports on the issue in greater depth in this openDemocracy essay.

By Jim Sleeper

/ 1 Sep 2013

The significance of the resignation of Yale's President

Yale's President lost the support of his faculty. His preplacement must understand that the University, enshrining the freedoms that thoughtful engagement requires and carrying them for society at large, has no place for the iron law of oligarchy

By Jim Sleeper

/ 10 Sep 2012

How Yale becomes more Confucian, rather than Singapore more civic-republican

Yale's Singaporean adventure, continued ... The crucible of civic-republican leadership is compromising its soul for the sake of what? The author is whispered the motive - Yale means business. Unsurprising but not uplifting

By Jim Sleeper

/ 10 Jun 2012

Yale's Singaporean adventure - a victory for the ideals of the republic?

Yale's Singaporean adventure may still be going ahead, even after a faculty rebellion over the issue. But the vote really is a moment of institutional awakening against the sinister fusion of American and Asian models of state capitalism. That fusion threatens a civic-republican ideal that conserv

By Jim Sleeper

/ 8 Apr 2012

University campuses in the Far East - money, power or democracy?

Yale should have proud independence from the lures of power and money in its bones. That does not mean shunning either, but treating both as servants of a better ideal. But the recent announcement of a campus in Singapore suggests that it has forgotten that stance. More generally, this sort of for

By Jim Sleeper

/ 18 Mar 2012

Ressentiment: how sniping at OWS feeds a dangerous populism

The right criticises OWS because it lacks order ... or surreptitiously injects hierarchy; because it respects private property ... or doesn't ... What drives the rhetorical sniping against OWS is the need for scapegoats. The media that offers them up is playing a dangerous game

By Jim Sleeper

/ 30 Oct 2011