Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research

Feature

To Write Poetry after Auschwitz is (NOT!) Barbaric

A lecture prepared for presentation at the University of Virginia

March 27, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am very pleased to join you today and share my reflections on the importance of, not only poetry, but art more generally, as it helps us confront the social condition of collective memory in dark times. I am especially grateful for Irit Dekel’s invitation to give this presentation. First as ...

Education

Further Reflections on Truth, Politics and Education

Media and Publics III

February 6, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

This past week was fascinating. We read Arendt’s essay “Truth and Politics,” along with a selection from Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday life. The students, Alysha originally from India, Lina, from Sweden, and the Julian from Los Angeles, wisely decided to draw upon the diversity of their experiences ...

Education

Truth and Politics at The New School and Beyond

Media and Politics in Dark Times II

February 5, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The executive order on immigration and refugees is abomination on many counts. The way it is affecting my students keeps me awake. Their studies could be disrupted. Students may not be able to return to the university. Others are locked in, not able to leave the country for fear that ...

Education

Media and Publics in Dark Times

An OOPS course

January 26, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The course objective, as I put it in the planned syllabus (responding to an administrative mandate to include such statements): “The objective of this class follows the insights of Michael Oakeshott, the great British (conservative) philosopher, as he illuminated the problem of education and of the liberal arts. He observed that ...

Multi Media

On Public Seminar’s Post Election Teach In

A Workshop on Social Resistance

December 7, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

We must and will move beyond shock and despair, and toward creative action. This is what I took to be the major theme of our Post Election Teach In Workshop on Social Resistance. I helped organize the event, trying to be hopeful in the face of my own sense of ...

On Public Seminar’s Post Election Teach In

On Trump and Trumpism

8 posts in 1

November 30, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am devastated. All of my public commitments are under attack. I thought there had been progress during my lifetime. Democracy and the positive developments of democratic culture, free speech and expression, social justice and the fight against racism, sexism, class exploitation, xenophobia, and much more, all seemed to advance, ...

Feature

Vera Zolberg

November 19, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

On Tuesday, November 15, 2016, my dear friend and colleague, Vera Zolberg, died. Her vast network of relatives, friends, colleagues and students are mourning a truly wonderful person. As a sociologist, she was a beloved teacher, mentor, author, scholar, colleague and friend, in the deep meaning of that underappreciated word. ...

Feature

New Catastrophe in Turkey

An open letter from Zeynep Gambetti

November 6, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Nancy Fraser just sent me this important open letter from Zeynep Gambetti on the escalating crisis in Turkey. J.G Dear friends and colleagues, We are going through very, very hard times all over the world. The rate of catastrophe is perhaps higher in Turkey, due to the State of Emergency that accelerates ...

Uncategorized

Karski’s Tragedy

Introduction of Nicholas Kristof at the Spirit of Jan Karski Award Ceremony

November 6, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

On November 1, 2016, in Tishman Auditorium of the New School, I had the honor to introduce Nicholas Kristof, this year's honoree at the Spirit of Jan Karski Award Ceremony. My introduction was informed by the works of Hannah Arendt and Erving Goffman, as they speak to each other and ...

Feature

The Promise and Perils of a Clinton Victory and a Trump Defeat

President Hillary Clinton + The Politics of Small Things = Progress?

October 18, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The second Clinton - Trump “debate” was a dismal affair, a low point in the history of the American Republic. Donald Trump demonstrated with great clarity why it is imperative that he not become the next president of the United States. He treated the event as a reality show, with ...

The Promise and Perils of a Clinton Victory and a Trump Defeat

Feature

I’m With Her. Not just Against Him: Hillary Clinton for President

September 22, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

To be sure, because of Trump, I think this election is different from all others: the first in living memory between an anti-democrat and a democrat, as I have already maintained in responding to an op ed. piece by my friend and colleague Jeff Isaac. Trump is a barbarian, and if ...