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Elaine Scarry

Elaine Scarry, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, is author most recently of Thinking in an Emergency.

Articles

On the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, it is clear that white supremacy sustains the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

Elaine Scarry

With virtually no democratic oversight and over 6,500 missiles in the United States alone, the use of nuclear weapons is almost inevitable. So why is it so hard to think about nuclear war?

Elaine Scarry, Rachel Ablow
What differentiates the crimes of a terrorist, hacker, or non-state actor from those of a president who launches a nuclear weapon?
Elaine Scarry, Jonathan King, Bruce Ackerman, Kennette Benedict, Bruce Blair, Sissela Bok, Rosa Brooks, John Burroughs, Hugh Gusterson, Edward Markey, Jim McGovern, Zia Mian, William Perry

To be a nuclear-armed state is to invest the executive with dictatorial powers over immeasurable destructive capacity.

Elaine Scarry, Simon Waxman

What is the ethical power of literature?

Elaine Scarry
Once eight countries have nuclear weapons, people everywhere on earth potentially ‘have’ them.
Elaine Scarry

Why we must prosecute the Bush administration officials who sanctioned torture.

Elaine Scarry

It is only by addressing torture through legal instruments—not simply through the electoral repudiation of bad policy—that the grave and widespread damage stands a chance of being repaired.

Elaine Scarry
Why military honor matters.
Elaine Scarry

Local governments are refusing to comply with the Patriot Act.

Elaine Scarry

The double requirement of the Constitution—that people's lives be private and government actions be public—is turned inside out by the Patriot Act.

Elaine Scarry

Forums

Can democracy protect us against terrorism?

Elaine Scarry

Forum Responses

Can we generalize about defense arrangements on the basis of a single day? A single morning? Steve Walt says we cannot. On this one morning, ten percent of all Manhattan office space...
Elaine Scarry

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