Geopolitics Archives - Public Seminar

To Know Your Enemy’s Face

Russian studies and language programs face a decline in the US, despite stable demand for expertise in the field

September 27, 2024 • by Anastasia Shteinert

Knowing your enemy as the key to victory is centuries-old wisdom. Washington seemed to embrace it during the Cold War, investing significant resources in the development of Soviet studies. In recent years, however, the situation has changed. Researchers and university professors are concerned about the deepening crisis in Russian studies ...

Democracy

Anthropocentrism and Democracy in Planetary Times

It is time to rethink political regimes in non-anthropocentric terms

April 12, 2023 • by Rafi Youatt

The way forward for our planet and democracy are to acknowledge nature’s own, different political modalities, by recognizing what I’ve elsewhere called interspecies politics. ...

Anthropocentrism and Democracy in Planetary Times

Interviews

Understanding Sovereign Lending

An interview with Quentin Bruneau on his new book, States and the Masters of Capital

March 1, 2023 • by Quentin Bruneau and Zoe Cole

While we can quibble about what sovereignty means as social scientists, the international system is almost exclusively populated by sovereign states—and I wanted to understand how lending to such entities functions....

Europe & Central Asia

Canceling the West, Putin Aims to “Make Russia Great Again”

The fact that anti-Western rhetoric is increasingly popular in Russia should be a wake-up call for Europe and the U.S.

March 1, 2023 • by Anastasia Shteinert

What is happening now in the country is the reappearance and radicalization of a centuries-old resentment of the West, in the context of the war in Ukraine....

Canceling the West, Putin Aims to “Make Russia Great Again”

Europe & Central Asia

Robert Jay Lifton on Psychic Numbing and the Warning from Ukraine

The renewed threat of nuclear war—and the importance of distinguishing between fear and anxiety

October 25, 2022 • by James Carroll and Robert Jay Lifton

Nuclear complacency is multifaceted. A certain amount of nuclear fear is appropriate to our situation. When we give in to what you’re calling nuclear complacency, it’s because we have insufficient fear of what is actually dangerous....

Robert Jay Lifton on Psychic Numbing and the Warning from Ukraine

Europe & Central Asia

Part 6: A New Treaty?

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

October 10, 2022 • by James Carroll

In this unprecedented context, a laserlike focus on banning the bomb can be a politically viable process, surpassing the failed efforts of bygone years, and even leading to the broader mitigation of “militarism” toward which peace movements have striven without success....

Europe & Central Asia

Part 3: Nuclear Dread Redux

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

September 19, 2022 • by James Carroll

Putin’s aggression was destroying cities, but it was also destroying what was left of the nascent impulse to move away from the absurdly named “Balance of Terror.”...

Europe & Central Asia

Part 1: A Just War?

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

September 7, 2022 • by James Carroll

In nations bracketing the North Atlantic a great sigh of relief could almost be heard: how great to be free once more to demonize Moscow....

Europe & Central Asia

Against All Hope, I Hope

Notes from a young Ukrainian abroad

March 8, 2022 • by Mariia Shynkarenko

Our military’s acts of bravery are already a legend. When a Russian warship approached the tiny island Zmiinyi on the Black Sea and ordered the soldiers there to surrender or perish, they responded: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!”...

Europe & Central Asia

What’s at Stake in Ukraine

“If you want peace, prepare for war”

February 2, 2022 • by Mariia Shynkarenko

Thus, the potential occupation of Ukraine should not be seen as a local affair, nor should the country be viewed as a strategic sacrifice to appease Putin’s fears about NATO. Instead, it should be seen as a warning of how far he can push his might, if not properly restrained. ...

Democracy

Brazil’s Universities Are Under Attack — And So Is Its Democracy

Brazilians are fighting to maintain their public universities

June 12, 2019 • by Daniel Peres

Cuts in the public budget are something usual -- not desirable, but normal nonetheless. What is not normal is when the cuts are justified in ideological terms. For Brazil’s new elect government, the Brazil University system is an enemy to be destroyed. Our universities, so they say, are all dominated ...

Feature

We Broke Fallujah In Irreversible Ways

Ross Caputi on The Sacking of Fallujah

June 7, 2019 • by Ross Caputi

In this interview, we talk to Ross Caputi, the principal author of the book and a former Marine who participated in the second siege of Fallujah to explain the timing of the book, the military significance of the city and how it became a primary site of contemporary warfare. --- Public Seminar: ...

Geopolitics

To Know Your Enemy’s Face

Russian studies and language programs face a decline in the US, despite stable demand for expertise in the field

Anthropocentrism and Democracy in Planetary Times

It is time to rethink political regimes in non-anthropocentric terms

Understanding Sovereign Lending

An interview with Quentin Bruneau on his new book, States and the Masters of Capital

Canceling the West, Putin Aims to “Make Russia Great Again”

The fact that anti-Western rhetoric is increasingly popular in Russia should be a wake-up call for Europe and the U.S.

Robert Jay Lifton on Psychic Numbing and the Warning from Ukraine

The renewed threat of nuclear war—and the importance of distinguishing between fear and anxiety

Part 6: A New Treaty?

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

Part 3: Nuclear Dread Redux

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

Part 1: A Just War?

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

Against All Hope, I Hope

Notes from a young Ukrainian abroad

What’s at Stake in Ukraine

“If you want peace, prepare for war”

Brazil’s Universities Are Under Attack — And So Is Its Democracy

Brazilians are fighting to maintain their public universities

We Broke Fallujah In Irreversible Ways

Ross Caputi on The Sacking of Fallujah

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