Class Archives - Public Seminar

Capitalism

The Rat Race of Prestige and Boredom

W. David Marx on how status affects human behavior

November 9, 2022 • by Alla Anatsko and W. David Marx

The whole idea of cultural capital is knowing what objects to buy, how to arrange them, how to behave—all of these things go together. Just because you can purchase an object does not mean you can get into the group....

Interviews

How Much of History Is a Haunting? An Interview with Kaitlyn Greenidge

The author shares the process behind her new novel, Libertie, in a conversation with Mira Jacob

December 15, 2021 • by Kaitlyn Greenidge and Mira Jacob

Upon the publication of Libertie, novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge chatted with Mira Jacob about ghost stories, historical fiction, and craft....

How Much of History Is a Haunting? An Interview with Kaitlyn Greenidge

Capitalism

How (Some) Rich People Work Toward Redistribution

Sociologist Rachel Sherman talks to Guillermina Altomonte about “class traitors” challenging how we think about wealth

October 27, 2021 • by Guillermina Altomonte and Rachel Sherman

By all measures we live in an era defined by profound inequality. Most recently, while millions of Americans lost their jobs and became poorer during the pandemic, U.S. billionaires became $1.8 trillion richer. Rachel Sherman, Professor of Sociology at The New School, has long been interested in how the wealthy ...

How (Some) Rich People Work Toward Redistribution

Capitalism

The PMC Has Children

Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class

April 8, 2021 • by Catherine Liu

_____ From the very moment of conception, which for professional managerial class (PMC) parents is always a “choice,” the future child and infant possesses “potential” that has to be both optimized and maximized. PMC mothers have to do prenatal yoga while setting up intrauterine Mozart streams on pregnant bellies. Preparing for ...

Higher Ed

Why Does White Fragility Never Break?

The Framing of Racism in Higher Education

September 22, 2020 • by Benjamin P. Davis

------ When I was a graduate student at Emory University in 2018, the law school suspended a professor, Paul Zwier, for using the N-word in class. Zwier’s response to the suspension was strange. Inside Higher Ed reported on a letter in which he said, “I’m not sure whether I used the ...

Europe & Central Asia

Poland Slouches On

After a noxious and underhanded campaign, Poland’s incumbent president, representing the country’s illiberal ruling party, has clinched a narrow re-election victory. That gives the government three more years to dismantle the country’s democracy.

July 17, 2020 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

WARSAW -- In the second round of Poland’s presidential election, incumbent Andrzej Duda narrowly defeated Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski. Though he carried just six provinces in eastern Poland, compared to Trzaskowski’s ten, and lost in medium and large cities, Duda’s support in villages and small towns was just enough to push him over the ...

Reviews

Void Bitches

To be trans is to be already left out of the design of the world.

May 21, 2020 • by McKenzie Wark

If trans writers have an affinity for the disaster of the world, maybe it’s because our bodies are a disaster already. Now that the whole planet has some kind of dysphoria, maybe it’s our time to shine. It’s a ludicrous idea, I know, but one reads in these times with a ...

Feature

Minding Race and Class in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Identity in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy

March 7, 2019 • by Daniel Gaztambide

This essay was originally published on March 7 2019. Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious demonstrates that psychoanalytic principles can be applied successfully in disenfranchised Latino populations, refuting the misguided idea that psychoanalysis is an expensive luxury only for the wealthy. As opposed to most Latin American countries, where ...

Minding Race and Class in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Feature

Treating Borderline Personality Disorder in El Barrio

An Interview with Daniel Gaztambide

March 6, 2019 • by Daniel Gaztambide and Josh Maserow

Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious demonstrates that psychoanalytic principles can be applied successfully in disenfranchised Latino populations, refuting the misguided idea that psychoanalysis is an expensive luxury only for the wealthy. As opposed to most Latin American countries, where psychoanalysis is seen as a practice tied to ...

Treating Borderline Personality Disorder in El Barrio

Feature

Nike’s Colin Kaepernick Ad, the Anonymous New York Times Op-Ed, and Robin Leach

Past Present Episode 145

September 11, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Natalia, Neil, and Niki discuss Nike’s controversial signing of Colin Kaepernick as the face of their Just Do It campaign, the anonymous New York Times op-ed written by a senior Trump administration official, and the recent death of Robin Leach. Here are some links and references mentioned during ...

Nike’s Colin Kaepernick Ad, the Anonymous New York Times Op-Ed, and Robin Leach

Feature

Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence

An excerpt from Rachel Sherman’s new book

September 11, 2017 • by Rachel Sherman

Scott told me he had been self-conscious about his wealth since he was a child. He recalled feeling sensitive to comments classmates and others would make about the size of his family’s house. He said, “I just felt like, ‘Yeah, this is kind of different. And, it’s something to hide.’” ...

Feature

Who’s Afraid of Workplace Democracy?

Research indicates cooperatives manage resources just as efficiently

January 19, 2017 • by Katarina Spasic

What is so remarkable when it comes to Weil’s notion of oppression is that she insists that oppression is inherent to managerial practice. Her work offers an ethical basis for the critical analysis of management, science, and expertise. One of her famous quotes reads, “When someone exposes himself as a ...