When we talk about badness and human nature, we keep smacking into a persistent problem: how do you explain cruelty? James Shapiro, professor of English at Columbia University, zeroes in on the drama of this question with a maddening insight from Shakespeare, by way of the villainous Iago.

And that ...

Susan Schaller believes that the best idea she ever had in her life had to do with an isolated young man she met one day at a community college. He was 27-years-old at the time, and though he had been born deaf, no one had ever taught him to sign. ...