by S. Abbas Raza and Morgan Meis Abbas: Some months ago when Morgan told me he was going to come and visit me in Südtirol from Sri Lanka in the first week of June, I stupidly agreed to go on an extended trek through the alps with him for several days. The idea was that…

by S. Abbas Raza David is one of the rare rock stars who continues to innovate and surprise in several artistic fields decades after his rise to fame as lead singer of the Talking Heads in the 1970s. Today, even as he enters his seventh decade he shows no signs of slowing down. Last week…

by S. Abbas Raza This is my English version of Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's Urdu rendition of a Turkish poem written by Nâzım Hikmet for his Russian wife Vera. To Vera She said comeShe said staySmile, said sheDie, said she I cameI stayedSmiledAnd died also.

by S. Abbas Raza This post is for 3QD friend and supporter Robert Pinsky. At one pole of the axis representing how literal poetry translations should be are figures like Vladimir Nabokov who believed that poetry must be translated as literally as possible without any interpretive liberties taken or attempts to preserve rhythm or the…

[Satellite photo of Manhattan on 9/11. The red circle is my own location at the time.] by S. Abbas Raza I hated Osama Bin Laden, and I suppose I probably had more personal reasons to hate him than most. When I was just beginning grad school in the philosophy department at Columbia University, I met…

by S. Abbas Raza The Egetmann pageant and parade took place in the South Tyrolean wine-making town of Tramin this past Tuesday, on the day before Ash Wednesday, as it has every odd-numbered year since 1591. I was there and can report that it completely lived up to its reputation for spectacular Alpine zaniness. The…

3 Quarks Daily asked a number of scholars, academics, journalists, writers and others to give us brief reactions to the recent events in Egypt. Their responses are given below in the order in which they were received: Akeel Bilgrami Mohsin Hamid Mark Blyth Frans de Waal Pablo Policzer Ejaz Haider Mona El-Ghobashy Gerald Dworkin Ram…

The first of these spontaneously popped into my mind as I regained consciousness after some recent shoulder surgery. As the effects of anaesthesia wore off and before the pain became a roar which drowned out every other thought, I made up the rest in the ultimately futile attempt at distracting myself: Send not to know…

Learning by Heart He recited a short poem to meWhich he had learned by heartNot to impress or intimidateMe, or anyone else, But just in case one yearSpring might be late in comingAnd he need cheer his friendsSaddened by the dearth of birdsong. Or perhaps for that moment in loveWhen he would be struck speechless,When…

Greetings from sweltering Karachi, As some of you know, I am spending the summer in Karachi. It's my first trip to the city of my birth in almost six years, and I've already been here a little over three weeks now. Here are a few things, picked rather arbitrarily, which I find to be very…

by Norman Costa (Note: I do not use the real names of people, nor do I identify the specific Ashram. I changed a few details. The purpose is to protect the privacy of the individuals. Readers who are familiar with this Ashram will probably recognize it.) What the Heck is an Ashram? Ashram is a…

My father died four years ago today. At the time, my sister Azra published a shorter version of this obituary in Karachi's leading English newspaper, Dawn: –S. Abbas Raza MEMBER OF PAKISTAN CIVIL SERVICE, RESPECTED AUTHOR AND INTELLECTUAL, SYED ALI RAZA DIES AT 91 by Azra Raza Syed Ali Raza, Retired Director, Ministry of Foreign…

So here we are, celebrating our 5th Newton's Day at 3QD. Along with Richard Dawkins, we independently and simultaneously came upon the idea of celebrating Newton's Day on December 25th in 2004, and each year since then I have written a little something about Sir Isaac. Here are my posts from 2004, 2005, 2006, and…

by Evert Cilliers There are two political figures in America who are masters of self-invention. One is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The other is Barack Obama. Arnold invented himself as a body builder, movie star, and Governor. Barack Obama invented himself as a black man, Christian, and President. (A quick aside about self-invention. It's not starting over,…

by Jason S. Bardi The holiday season is upon us, and spending the weekend at the relatively unconnected house of a close relative makes me long for all those modern conveniences I take for granted: cell phones, PDAs, digital cable, and high-speed wireless. Lack of wireless is going to force me to find an internet…

In reverse chronological order: Expand the Police Force, in Dawn, 9/2009 Defending Dictatorship: Another View on Pakistan, in n + 1, 3/2008 The Bhutto Dynasty Must End Now, in Foreign Policy in Focus, 1/2008 Welcome to America…You’re Under Arrest, in The Smart Set, 1/2008 [S. Abbas Raza’s writing for 3QD can be seen here.]

I am a nerd. I used to be an engineer and so I like calculating stuff in my head. I hardly ever use electronic calculators, even when exact calculations of something are needed, preferring to do them by hand (try it, it can be a soothing thing) on chit’s of paper, backs-of-the-proverbial envelopes, etc. But…

by S. Abbas Raza Akeel Bilgrami is the Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University. Professor Bilgrami went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and got a Bachelor’s degree there in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. In 1983 he got his Ph.D. from the University of…

Ram Manikkalingam is visiting professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam. Bilgrami’s paper is centrally located within the contemporary debate about the global divide between “Islam and the West” that is popularly called “the clash of civilisations”. This debate is motivated by the question – “why do they hate us?” – posed by…

by Jason S. Bardi Approaching 1:00 a.m. on Monday morning, I am wondering if I will get my first blog post finished (’twas due 45 minutes ago). I have that desperation that anyone who is up past midnight has, and because of this, coupled with the fact that the story I am telling concerns a…