Showing posts with label progressive intellectuals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label progressive intellectuals. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Move over, Sartre. France has a new über-intellectual.


Tip of the hat to T. Cowen for the tip.

I enjoyed reading this as it does represent so much more than what the premise of the article seems to suggest. The über-intellectual at hand is Esther Duflo whose work on both sides of the pond is worthy of much following.

A bit says:

"She is Esther Duflo and was recently named one of the 100 most influential thinkers in the world (she came 91st). She begins a season of lectures this week at the Collège de France, the Everest of French intellectual life: a kind of PhD-level OU with no students and free lectures for all.

Mme Duflo is the youngest woman ever to be asked to lecture at this prestigious, 500-year-old institution at the heart of the Left Bank. Her introductory talk was the hottest (free) ticket in town. Several hundred people, including the former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, arrived too late and were locked out.

Mme Duflo is a "development economist" one of the world's greatest experts – perhaps the greatest – on why development programmes in poor countries often fail and why they sometimes succeed. Her precise field of expertise has existed less than a decade. She is among its inventors."

Read it. You can't help but be impressed. Find it here.




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Saturday, January 3, 2009

Young Progressive Intellectual Stars of 2008

Interesting list.
Choices like Rachel Maddow and Samantha Power seemed obvious to me. Valid too, of course. Rachel Maddow's cable news show on MSNBC is informative, intelligent, well-contextualized, and daring. She is definitely one of the true media stars of 2008. MSNBC made the right decision with her and, in the process, hit the jackpot too, as Maddow's ratings have skyrocketed in a matter of months.

Here's a bit from Rachel Maddow's show.



People like Samantha Power make me wish I moved faster and accomplished more. Power has managed to get tenured at Harvard by the age of 38. In addition to that, she's also a Pulitzer prize winner and a high profile political adviser. Here's a bit that features Power in action.






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