The Michigan Review - Journal of Campus Affairs

Political Correctness: U-M Professors Lecture on Language

Last Monday, January 28th, U-M students braved the cold to attend a lecture on the language of political correctness as part of the University’s Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium. Arthur F. Thurnau professors of English and Linguistics at the University of Michigan, Robin Queen and Anne Curzan, introduced themselves and their positions at […]

A Champion is Born: The Ben Flanagan Story

On June 6th, 2018, one lap remained on Hayward Field Track in Eugene, Oregon. This was not just any lap: it was the lap to determine who would be the 10,000 meter NCAA Champion. By the last lap, after the size of the lead pack winnowed down, Michigan’s Ben Flanagan found himself closing in on […]

Bill Kristol Falls Short as a Conservative Voice

One could be forgiven for mistaking Bill Kristol with the faux-conservative class of one-time Republicans who seem to be on an endless media tour fawning outrage at Trump’s most recent tweet. When the neoconservative icon and editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard made an appearance at the Ford School in early October, few vestiges of his […]

Reaping the Whirlwind: Brett Kavanaugh and the Undoing of a Republic

The dust is not settled and the worst is not behind us. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination hearing showed us exactly what happens when the primal rage of the Democratic Party mob is unleashed. That Kavanaugh’s hearing smacked more of an X-rated “High School Musical,” than a picture of the world’s “greatest deliberative body” is only […]

A Nuclear Bomb

In October of 2013, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid had a decision to make. The Republican Party under Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed to take pleasure in delaying the Senate. FIlibusters were becoming the norm and cloture motions, votes to break a filibuster, had nearly doubled from the Bush era, as logjam seemed to be […]

A Champion is Born: The Ben Flanagan Story

Thank You, Blake

When I first came to campus, I had to meet new people. As a freshman, this can become a tedious task, and I quickly became overwhelmed by the new names that seemed to fly past me. It was stressful at times, but the opportunity to get to really know people is always a treat. Generally, […]

Receding Expectations: Michigan Football in Review

“We bow to no man. We bow to no program. We are Michigan.” These words, uttered all season long in the calming cadence of James Earl Jones, linger now as a sardonic mockery of our program’s state of affairs. As Michigan fans, we unrealistically expect greatness in our athletic endeavors, ignoring the staunch unlikelihood […]

Inherent Vice: Adam McKay’s Vice struggles to find a message in muddling Biopic

In February of last year, I attended the AEI Eastern Policy Summit at the University of Virginia, which was a weekend filled with great speakers and fascinating discussion and debates. On the first night, Dick and Lynne Cheney came and talked about Lynne’s book on James Madison. I was shocked at their charm and camaraderie, […]

The Debasement of Political Satire

Monty Python was a popular—and brilliant—mid-1900s British sketch comedy troupe. Recently, I’ve been watching clips of their eponymous TV series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which satirizes British culture. Their political sketches, such as Party Political Broadcast and The Ministry of Silly Walks, critique politicians and excessive bureaucracy, respectively, and are pretty funny. More importantly, they […]

Bending Realities: ‘Westworld’ and Our Conception of Free Will

“Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?” Oh many times, Jeffrey Wright, many times—perhaps more now than ever before. I never thought a show could bring out this feeling in me, but it turns out that a TV addiction has its perks. ‘Westworld’, a show I was unfamiliar with a mere month ago, […]