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

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Gray Memory

On a Self-limiting Collective Imagination

April 13, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” So wrote Milan Kundera. Years ago, I found in his bold assertion confirmation of the findings of my first major research project on the sociological dynamics of cultural freedom. I would like to think my study of ...

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Civility and Subversion in Dark Times

Answering the Question: Why Public Seminar?

April 6, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Why Public Seminar? Over the past four years, the doubtful, curious, intrigued and impressed have asked me this question, people at my university and at others, academics and non-academics, young and old, New Yorkers, Americans and colleagues from abroad, interested readers and potential contributors. I have answered in various ways, all ...

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The Radical Center and The Politics of the Gray

Notes on the implications of the social condition for an understanding of politics

March 30, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Over the past three months, I have been publishing weekly Gray Friday posts, reflecting on the events of the day and enduring human problems, and considering how contributions to Public Seminar inform my appreciation of the beauty of the gray. Today, I will begin to explain the political implications I ...

The Radical Center and The Politics of the Gray

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The Practical and Principled Gray Argument for Democratic Party Solidarity

Reflections of an Unreconstructed Deaniac

March 23, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am a committed partisan of “the democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” and have been so ever since Howard Dean ran for Democratic nomination to be President of the United States in 2004. I worked for his candidacy, wrote about it in The Politics of Small Things, and later wrote about ...

The Practical and Principled Gray Argument for Democratic Party Solidarity

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Understanding Media in Dark Times

The extensions of men and women

March 16, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The authoritarian threat in the United States and its resistance are actively being constituted through media, and the whole world is not only watching: it is actively participating. The Presidency of Donald Trump is not imaginable without Twitter. But also Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and, this week, the nation wide walk ...

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Women of the World Unite?

Radical, Liberal and Conservative Feminism, and Democracy

March 9, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

In the wake of the International Women’s Strike, I feel a need to express my support of “the feminism of the ninety nine percent,” but also of “lean-in feminism,” and “conservative feminism” (if there is such a thing), fully aware that they do not support each other. Such is my ...

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By Any Means Necessary?

Reflecting on the Book Launch of # Charlottesville: Before and Beyond

March 2, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

We had a party last night, a book launch of #Charlottesville: Before and Beyond. It was a great event, a milestone, inspiring and gratifying. Hard work has yielded important results. I am personally pleased that my intuition that there is room on the web for critical consideration of significant issues, informed ...

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The Makings of Black Lives Matter and Public Seminar

Reflections of an old New Leftist on the Race/isms Book Forum

February 23, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am not a great fan of the older generation bemoaning the limitations of the younger one. I am not at all sure, as some of my peers are, that we were more curious than they are, read more, were smarter, more engaged, more mature. With this in mind, I ...

The Makings of Black Lives Matter and Public Seminar

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I Love Compromise, But…

Compromise as a Democratic Necessity or as Democracy’s Corruption?

February 16, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Yet, I also know that there is a second meaning to the word compromise, that compromise can be understood as the abandonment of principle, often insuring the continuation of a pressing problem, even making matters worse. Think of the compromises about slavery leading up to the American Civil War. Compromise ...

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Loving a Military Parade and Clapping for the Great Leader

On Post Truth Authoritarianism and Resistance

February 9, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Donald Trump is truly a path breaking leader, opening new horizons for the American Republic. This week, he introduced into the American public life the idea of military parade in Washington D.C. and “joked” that those who do not clap for the great leader commit treason. Both truly unprecedented “advances,” ...

Loving a Military Parade and Clapping for the Great Leader

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To the Directors of the National Museum in Krakow

An open letter

February 6, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

This letter addressed to Andrzej Betlej and Andrzej Szczerski, the directors of the National Museum in Krakow, came across my screen on Sunday. We are publishing it here today both for what it says about the struggle against the new authoritarianism in Poland, and also because, it seems to me, it ...

To the Directors of the National Museum in Krakow

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A Post on Friendship, Love and Power

On the Power of the Powerless in Dark Times

February 2, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“There are a great many things which cannot withstand the implacable, bright light of the constant presence of others on the public scene; there, only what is considered to be relevant, worthy of being seen and heard, can be tolerated…there are very relevant matters which can survive only in the ...