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You probably arrived from one essay, or one podcast. These four pieces are the shortest route to the rest of the work: one on political theory, one on technology and war, one on sex and culture, and one conversation.
Politics and political thought
Hannah Arendt and the Nation State
The clearest statement of an argument Ran keeps returning to: that the contemporary contempt for the nation-state is a recent invention, and that it has been given a false pedigree by being attributed to Arendt.
Technology and war
The IDF’s Cult of Technology
A ten-thousand-word case study in what happens when an institution lets technology stand in for judgement. It is also the piece that brought Ran the widest readership.
Sex, identity and culture
Abolish Queer Theory!
The most argumentative thing he has written — a long, heavily footnoted case that the academic theory of sexuality has lost contact with the lives it describes.
In conversation
Bungacast #543: “Squeamish About Sex, Aroused By Identity”
The Abolish Queer Theory! argument in spoken form, under pushback. A good way to hear how Ran handles disagreement rather than how he writes.
A new essay, “Failing Like a State,” is forthcoming in American Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer 2026). It will be added here when it appears.
Follow Ran’s work
Essays and conversations on politics, culture, and the history of ideas. New writing by email.
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