Co-Executive Editor, Public Seminar and Professor of History, The New School for Social Research

Feminism

Are You Looking for Jane?

From 1965 to 1973, the women of Chicago’s Jane Collective took the right to a safe abortion into their own hands. Literally.

September 6, 2021 • by Heather Booth and Claire Potter

_____ This week, when a Supreme Court majority permitted Texas to eviscerate Roe v. Wade and created a legal path for other states to end legal abortion after six weeks, I dashed off an email to feminist Heather Booth. A lifetime organizer against social injustice, Booth’s work began in the civil rights and anti-war ...

Interviews

In the Aftermath of War

What the post-1975 history of the Vietnam War should teach us about the days, months, and years after the United States leaves Afghanistan

August 27, 2021 • by Claire Potter and Amanda Demmer

_____ As the military situation in Afghanistan began to unspool at the end of July, and comparisons to the United States 1975 evacuation of Saigon proliferated, I wanted to know more. So I reached for Amanda Demmer’s After Saigon's Fall: Refugees and US-Vietnamese Relations, 1975–2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2021) to think ...

Columnists

The Un-Canceling of Biographer Blake Bailey

W.W. Norton took a financial bath on Philip Roth: A Biography, and Skyhorse Press will make all the profits. Is this the end of cancel culture?

August 25, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ A little less than three months ago, charges emerged that Blake Bailey had groomed female middle school students for sex and that he had pestered and sexually assaulted adult women. After what were undoubtedly agonizing internal debates, W.W. Norton exercised the morals clause in Bailey’s contract, putting his 2014 memoir ...

The Un-Canceling of Biographer Blake Bailey

Film & Performing Arts

Faculty TeeVee

In the Netflix series The Chair, Sandra Oh is charged with a Sisyphean task: an English department faculty in decline. Spoiler alerts!

August 20, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ It’s such a setup, and one of Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim’s colleagues knows it. As Dr. Kim settles into her office as the first woman—the first woman of color, no less—to chair the English department at the fictional Pembroke University, a package awaits her. It is a nameplate for her desk which ...

Politics

Actually, Facebook Does Kill People

Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s “An Ugly Truth” reveals why Mark Zuckerberg’s denials that Facebook is a Covid-19 conspiracy superspreader are laughable

August 6, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ On July 16, a reporter writing a story about Covid-19 vaccine disinformation asked Joe Biden: “What’s your message to platforms like Facebook?” The President answered, “I mean, they’re killing people. Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.” I want to point out that although ...

Politics

In a Federal Infrastructure Bill, Waste Isn’t Pork

Politics may or may not be a sewer, but the fact is a lot of rural American backyards are: a Democratic Congresswoman from Alabama wants to fix that with tax dollars

July 20, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ There are two Americas, and of the many things that divide affluent Americans from poor ones, the one that we talk about the least might be the ability to take waste disposal for granted. But, of course, it isn’t always the case: tree roots growing into a fragile pipe, a ...

In a Federal Infrastructure Bill, Waste Isn’t Pork

Columnists

“What Can I Do to Help?”—Said No Software Solution Ever

Re-hiring human beings for clerical, secretarial, and other traditional pink-collar work would create good jobs and make our offices more attuned to human needs

July 14, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ Is there anyone working for a large organization who doesn’t dread the announcement of a new “technology solution?” There’s a hard truth lurking behind every cheerful email about a new platform with a perky name and great graphics. That truth is: more work that used to be done by a ...

“What Can I Do to Help?”—Said No Software Solution Ever

Democracy

A Connection That Never Expired

In 1974, Jeffrey Goldfarb went to Poland to do research about democracy—and put down lasting roots

July 7, 2021 • by Elzbieta Matynia and Claire Potter

Claire Potter: Elzbieta, let's begin with when you met Jeff Goldfarb. Elzbieta Matynia: Jeff and Naomi Goldfarb came to Poland in 1973—Jeff was on an IREX fellowship, and Naomi attended some studio classes at the Academy of Arts. I had just begun my graduate studies. But we were both interested in the same ...

Columnists

Remembering Gay Activist Vito Russo

Long before LGBT Pride was all rainbows, sunshine, and corporate dollars, this film critic and journalist typified what it meant to be a radical queer intellectual

June 30, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ It is June 28, the actual anniversary of New York City’s Stonewall Rebellion, and we are (thank the goddess) nearing the end of Pride Month. June is a pseudo-sacred time of year for queers and those who make money from us. Major cities and resort towns worldwide have been mounting parades, hanging colorful flags, ...

Columnists

Ethel Rosenberg’s Story

Anne Sebba’s new biography liberates this radical woman from a concocted Cold War narrative that concealed her courage

June 23, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the young married couple executed for treason as Soviet atom spies 68 years ago this week, are seldom discussed as separate people. I had never noticed this before reading Anne Sebba’s new biography, Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy (St. Martin’s Press, 2021), but it isn’t an ...

Democracy

Confederate Monuments Are Not History

Like the contemporary war on “critical race theory,” these statues of the defeated prop up white supremacy in the name of a false past

June 15, 2021 • by Claire Potter and Karen L. Cox

_____ It seemed as though monuments were suddenly in the news during Donald Trump’s presidency, but they have always been controversial. Monuments to the Confederacy were contested by African American citizens as soon as they appeared after 1865. Black citizens understood these monuments for what they were: a rallying point for ...

Columnists

Why Maya Wiley Could Be New York City’s First Woman Mayor

Now the top progressive in a Democratic mayoral primary that no one can poll, her error-free campaign and progressive chops could push this first-time candidate over the line

June 7, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ It’s a move that may provide an important last-minute jolt of energy for undecided progressives: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY-14) has endorsed activist and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley for Mayor of New York City. And it isn’t just an Instagram moment: it is a recognition of what Wiley has already ...

Claire Potter

Are You Looking for Jane?

From 1965 to 1973, the women of Chicago’s Jane Collective took the right to a safe abortion into their own hands. Literally.

In the Aftermath of War

What the post-1975 history of the Vietnam War should teach us about the days, months, and years after the United States leaves Afghanistan

The Un-Canceling of Biographer Blake Bailey

W.W. Norton took a financial bath on Philip Roth: A Biography, and Skyhorse Press will make all the profits. Is this the end of cancel culture?

Faculty TeeVee

In the Netflix series The Chair, Sandra Oh is charged with a Sisyphean task: an English department faculty in decline. Spoiler alerts!

In a Federal Infrastructure Bill, Waste Isn’t Pork

Politics may or may not be a sewer, but the fact is a lot of rural American backyards are: a Democratic Congresswoman from Alabama wants to fix that with tax dollars

“What Can I Do to Help?”—Said No Software Solution Ever

Re-hiring human beings for clerical, secretarial, and other traditional pink-collar work would create good jobs and make our offices more attuned to human needs

A Connection That Never Expired

In 1974, Jeffrey Goldfarb went to Poland to do research about democracy—and put down lasting roots

Remembering Gay Activist Vito Russo

Long before LGBT Pride was all rainbows, sunshine, and corporate dollars, this film critic and journalist typified what it meant to be a radical queer intellectual

Ethel Rosenberg’s Story

Anne Sebba’s new biography liberates this radical woman from a concocted Cold War narrative that concealed her courage

Confederate Monuments Are Not History

Like the contemporary war on “critical race theory,” these statues of the defeated prop up white supremacy in the name of a false past

Why Maya Wiley Could Be New York City’s First Woman Mayor

Now the top progressive in a Democratic mayoral primary that no one can poll, her error-free campaign and progressive chops could push this first-time candidate over the line

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