Are You My Mother?

Merve Emre on transference in the classroom. Plus: the politics of heat waves; and a writer replaces himself with a robot. View in browser | Update your preferences Tuesday, July 11, 2023 In today’s newsletter, who’s in charge? And then: • The politics of heat waves • A writer replaces himself with a robot • How sotol became the new mezcal Are You My Mother? Transference and the contemporary classroom. Illustration by Andrew B. Myers Today’s college campuses are host to a litany of fraught relationships between teachers and students—and, increasingly, conflicts are breaking out of the academy to feature in culture-war arguments around ideas about “trauma” and “care.” As Merve Emre explores in a fascinating essay in this week’s Therapy Issue, contested exchanges over “test questions, classroom exercises, grading and accommodation policies, student feedback, course content, off-the-cuff jokes, extracurricular plays and productions, and social-media posts” can be freshly understood through the psychoanalytic lens of transference, and the “feelings of dismay that arise when authority figures fail to live up to the fantasies or expectations projected onto them.” An honest discussion of what students need from teachers, and what teachers, in turn, need from their students, may be essential, Emre writes, if “universities are to move away from cycles of easy outrage and conspiratorial accounts of who really holds power, and toward a hard-won truce.” Read the story Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » The Therapy Issue: Jia Tolentino on climate panic, Joshua Rothman on cognitive behavioral therapy, cartoons from our archive, and more new pieces publishing all week. Explore the issue » From the News Desk Daily Comment Is It Hot Enough Yet for Politicians to Take Real Action? The latest record temperatures are driving, again precisely as scientists have predicted, a cascading series of disasters around the world. By Bill McKibben Kyle Chayka Illustration by Pablo Delcan Earlier this year, the columnist Kyle Chayka asked a Silicon Valley startup to replicate his personal writing voice with an A.I. version. As Chayka explains, the company’s “pitch is that I, Human Kyle, can use Robot Kyle to generate text in a style that sounds like mine, at a speed that I could only dream of.” Would Robot Kyle help the flesh-and-blood version become a better writer—or else render him obsolete? Read more to find out » Dept. of Diversions Letter from the Southwest Sotol and the Making of the Next Big Drink The Mexican spirit has been called the next mezcal. But its newfound popularity has brought problems, too. By Rachel Monroe Fun & Games Dept. Name Drop Play Today’s Quiz Can you guess the notable person in six clues or fewer? By Will Nediger Daily Shouts Long Time No See Annoying encounters with familiar faces. By Rafael Alvarez Crossword A Moderately Challenging Puzzle Author who posed the question “Who is John Galt?”: four letters. By Patrick Berry Daily Cartoon Tuesday, July 11th By Adam Douglas Thompson P.S. Images of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, a gargantuan cruise ship that will be the world’s largest when it launches next year, have been going around the Web this week. For a better sense of the impact of these floating monsters, watch the documentary short “View,” by Odveig Klyve, which captures what happens when a cruise ship is as big as the port it visits. Today’s newsletter was written by Ian Crouch. Thanks for reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up for The Daily. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for The Daily from The New Yorker. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2023. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.