Society

The New Academic Year: A University Can No Longer Be a Diploma Factory

Columbia University students. New York, 25 April 2024 // Photo: Stephanie Keith / Getty Images

Universities have no chance of rising to the challenges of the future. So maybe they should play an entirely different role?

By Mateusz Mazzini

The turning point came on a particular autumn afternoon. We were, technically, still in one place — my twelve first-year journalism students and I — but beyond that shared physical space, I don't think there was really anything still connecting us.

They were deeply immersed in their own worlds — digital ones, built by algorithms. My screen was the biggest in the room, but its size was inversely proportional to my ability to hold their attention. Excerpts from George Orwell's essay "Why I Write" — a founding text for understanding the role and practice of honest journalism — lay there lifeless.

From Poznań to Suez: 70 Years Ago, Revolts and Crises Changed Poland and the World

The Poznań June and then the Polish October, the bloody uprising in Hungary and the war over the Suez Canal. How did 1956 change Poland, Europe, and the world? By Łukasz Kamiński The story of the turbulent year 1956 has to begin three years earlier, with Joseph Stalin's

Is This Already World War III? The New Conflicts Don't Look Like the Old Ones

Gideon Rachman: Global conflict is one of the main elements of world leaders' strategic thinking. Should we be ready for a new axis of evil? By Mateusz Mazzini and Gideon Rachman Mateusz Mazzini: You're about to publish a book on the risk of a new global war.

Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet: The Whirling Meaning of What we Read

Anne Carson, the Canadian poet and essayist, has for years been named among the leading contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature. It's no wonder Polish publishers are showing growing interest in her books. By Monika Ochędowska Written in the mid-1980s, Eros the Bittersweet is both Carson&

A Botched Execution in the US. Where Does Barbarism Begin?

After nearly 30 years on death row, Christa Pike survived an attempted execution. Does the state have the right to try to kill her again? By Włodzimierz Wróbel On Wednesday, 30 September, Tennessee attempted to carry out the death sentence on Christa Pike, convicted in 1996 of murdering 19-year-

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From Poznań to Suez: 70 Years Ago, Revolts and Crises Changed Poland and the World

Is This Already World War III? The New Conflicts Don't Look Like the Old Ones

Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet: The Whirling Meaning of What we Read

A Botched Execution in the US. Where Does Barbarism Begin?