Feature Archives - Public Seminar

Feature

My Arrest in Poland

The authorities hadn’t expected an American to be at this obscure performance

July 7, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

_____ “At the time the circumstances of my arrest in Poland seemed trivial. I hardly thought about them afterward. But now, when I consider the fall of 1989, and the fall of communism, my little run in with the Polish authorities seems highly suggestive of how things were then and what ...

Feature

How “Blue Lives Matter” Perpetuates Police Violence

The movement fosters an environment of fear, hatred, and racism

June 9, 2020 • by Adam Quinn

In the aftermath of the killings of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte at the hands of police, the Blue Lives Matter hashtag rallied around a video of a group of black youth attacking a white man and taking his pants off in a parking garage ...

How “Blue Lives Matter” Perpetuates Police Violence

Feature

Welcome to the New Public Seminar

Marking the New School’s centennial year with a refreshed platform and a renewed commitment to conversation

September 30, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, James Miller and Claire Potter

Everything you have always found at Public Seminar is still here. But we’ve redesigned the site to let you let you slow down, if you want to. Public Seminar’s commitment to discussing the pressing issues of our contemporary world also now includes a commitment to contemplation, to doing more with less, and at the ...

Feature

Trump Is America’s Father, and Dad is Sick

America’s Toxic Parent

September 30, 2019 • by Susanna Lee

The parent-child analogy does not presume that the state leader acts as parent, but that the state itself does. There has always been some overlap between state and individual when it comes to acting as parent to the people. Many heads of state are described in fatherly terms. It is ...

Feature

A Ticket for the Rome Express

A Strategy for Democracy

September 27, 2019 • by Andrew Arato

In Budapest, and shortly before local elections, some of my friends now speak of the Istanbul Express. As readers know, in that enormous city, followers of the slightly left Republican People’s Party (CHP), of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and a small nationalist grouping, “the Good Party,” united to ...

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On Hate and Boycotts

How We Choose What We Believe

September 26, 2019 • by David Stromberg

It took me about six months to start interacting with people I perceived as "white." It took me a lot longer to reflect on how I could so readily use the word hate. With time I realized it was because, where I came from, hating white people -- which mostly meant ...

Feature

On Postcolonial Remembering and Democratic Openings in Taiwan

An Interview with Former Political Prisoner, Fred Chin

September 26, 2019 • by Stephen J. Hartnett and Patrick Shaou-Whea Dodge

Beginning with the infamous “228” massacres in the Spring of 1947, Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) brutalized Taiwan with murder, torture, mass imprisonment, and relentless censorship -- this period has come to be known as the “White Terror.” The brave work of generations of activists led to the KMT finally lifting ...

Feature

Socialist Humanism

Integrating Psychology into a New Progressive Politics

September 26, 2019 • by Mick Cooper

The Alternative: Towards a New Progressive Politics is, perhaps, one of the most inspiring and forward-thinking texts to come out of UK progressive politics for several years. Edited by a Green MP (Caroline Lucas), a Labour MP (Lisa Nandy), and a Liberal Democrat candidate (Chris Bowers), the book lays out a ...

Feature

Death by Omission

Power and Politics in the Amazon

September 25, 2019 • by Chris Crews

Celebrity Distractions Shellenberger begins by attacking public celebrities who shared photos that were either not from the Amazon or actually dated back to years earlier: “Celebrities, environmentalists, and political leaders blame Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, for destroying the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, which they say is the “lungs of the world.” Singers and ...

Art & Design

The Writing on the Wall

Orozco, Benton, and Arnautoff

September 25, 2019 • by Jennifer Wilson

Student and activist groups have campaigned for the removal of the murals, arguing they were detrimental to the education and well-being of students of color, who had to confront these images as they walked the halls or ascended the staircase. On the other side of the debate, art historians and ...

Feature

A Call For A Global Focus On Community Values

A market for values is what the world Needs to reconcile democracy and capitalism, community and the individual

September 24, 2019 • by Marco Senatore

The weakening of democracy and community Liberal democracy is in retreat in several countries: Brazil, India, Hungary, Poland. It is also going through an identity crisis in the United States and United Kingdom. In Italy in the last year there has been a sharp increase in divisiveness on issues such as ...

Feature

Shane Gillis and Saturday Night Live, Saudi Arabia, and Telephone Calls

Past Present Episode 197

September 24, 2019 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Saturday Night Live hired comedian Shane Gillis and then promptly fired him when video of his racist remarks about Asian Americans and others surfaced. Niki referred to Ellen D. Wu’s book The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority. Natalia ...