2009/12/10



Deborah Solomon Interviews Martha Nussbaum It’s good to see Martha Nussbaum in the New York Times Magazine, even if they’re only interested in her because her new book talks about homosexuality. Pretty much half of the trend stories in the NYTMagazine could use a philosophical fisking. The interview itself contains some personal bits I didn’t know. Apparently she’s a convert to Judaism. I guess that fits in well with her Aristotelianism. Philo two-thousand years later? The interview is by Deborah Solomon, which means it sounds like a Deborah Solomon interview. I’m not sure how much leeway is involved in “INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED,” but all of her interviews end up sounding the same tonally. It’s quite odd how everyone from right to left ends up as an acerbic New Yorker in her pages. In my mind, I always picture Martha Nussbaum as a brunette I knew in college. My mental Martha Nussbaum would stick out much less in the back of a synagogue or the front of a lecture hall. I wonder how much it’s impacted her career that she breaks the stereotype of the mousey professor. Probably it hurt her when she was up-and-coming, but it’s helped her now that her bona fides are well known.

Deborah Solomon Interviews Martha Nussbaum

It’s good to see Martha Nussbaum in the New York Times Magazine, even if they’re only interested in her because her new book talks about homosexuality. Pretty much half of the trend stories in the NYTMagazine could use a philosophical fisking.

The interview itself contains some personal bits I didn’t know. Apparently she’s a convert to Judaism. I guess that fits in well with her Aristotelianism. Philo two-thousand years later?

The interview is by Deborah Solomon, which means it sounds like a Deborah Solomon interview. I’m not sure how much leeway is involved in “INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED,” but all of her interviews end up sounding the same tonally. It’s quite odd how everyone from right to left ends up as an acerbic New Yorker in her pages.

In my mind, I always picture Martha Nussbaum as a brunette I knew in college. My mental Martha Nussbaum would stick out much less in the back of a synagogue or the front of a lecture hall. I wonder how much it’s impacted her career that she breaks the stereotype of the mousey professor. Probably it hurt her when she was up-and-coming, but it’s helped her now that her bona fides are well known.

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