Our Sixties: Blowin’ in the Wind

Thinking Morally, Acting Strategically

Making History/Making Blintzes: How Two Red Diaper Babies Found Each Other and Discovered America is a chronicle of the political and personal lives of progressive activists Richard (Dick) and Miriam (Mickey) Flacks, two of the founders of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As active members of the Civil Rights movement ...
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Our Sixties: Blowin’ in the Wind

What to Expect When You Are Expecting Exploitation

An excerpt from ‘Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism’

In a witty, irreverent op-ed piece that went viral, Kristen Ghodsee argued that women had better sex under socialism. The response was tremendous -- clearly, she articulated something many women had sensed for years: the problem is with capitalism, not with us. Ghodsee, an acclaimed ethnographer and professor of Russian and ...
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What to Expect When You Are Expecting Exploitation

Socialism and the Future of Gender Justice: Part 2

A Dialogue about Feminism in the Marketplace of Ideas

On August 12, 2017, Kristen Ghodsee published an op-ed in the New York Times, titled “Why Women Had Better Sex under Socialism.” The piece was due to appear in print a few days later, but the editors published the online version on that date. Coincidentally, the late night of August 11th and the morning of August ...
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Socialism and the Future of Gender Justice: Part 2

Socialism and the Future of Gender Justice

A Dialogue about Feminism in the Marketplace of Ideas

On August 12, 2017, Kristen Ghodsee published an op-ed in the New York Times, titled “Why Women Had Better Sex under Socialism.” The piece was due to appear in print a few days later, but the editors published the online version on that date. Coincidentally, the late night of August 11th and the morning ...
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Socialism and the Future of Gender Justice

Blackface, Venezuela, and Conversation Hearts

Past Present Episode 166

In this episode, Natalia, Niki, and Neil discuss the history of blackface, political upheaval in Venezuela, and the demise of Valentine’s Day conversation hearts. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Two top Virginia Democrats have admitted to wearing blackface. Natalia pointed to a recent Gucci turtleneck that many have ...
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Blackface, Venezuela, and Conversation Hearts

The KonMari Method as Consumer Theory

How Marie Kondo helps us re-learn to love the things we buy

This essay was originally published on February 11 2019. I first sat down to watch Tidying Up with Marie Kondo only after “Bookgate” had already erupted and passed. In early January, a series of viral tweets criticized Kondo and her “KonMari” tidying method for the suggestion that one ought to keep no more ...
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The KonMari Method as Consumer Theory

What’s So “Jewish” About The New School?

Inventing a parable of pluralism

So what’s so Jewish about The New School? Well, it depends on what you mean by “Jewish.” The simplest -- and most awkwardly Nixonian -- way to answer the question is to count the Jews. When King David tried to do that in 2 Samuel 24, God smote the Israelites with three ...
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What’s So “Jewish” About The New School?

Authoritarian Parasitism in Turkey and Beyond

Erdogan and the rise of strongman politics

What makes this phenomenon perplexing is the fact that these governments come into power in countries that are anything but similar. For instance, the United States has a long-lasting political system backed by its strong institutions and semi-holy texts such as its Constitution. Hungary reframed its entire political regime after ...
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Authoritarian Parasitism in Turkey and Beyond

Howard Schultz, Gay Priests, and Ted Bundy

Past Present Episode 165

In this episode, Neil, Niki, and Natalia discuss Howard Schultz’ presidential bid, gay men in the priesthood, and the enduring fascination with serial killer Ted Bundy. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Starbucks founder Howard Schultz has announced he is running for the presidency in 2020. Natalia referred ...
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Howard Schultz, Gay Priests, and Ted Bundy

New York is the Place

How the city has defined The New School

The 1918 proposal to create a “new school” ended with a rousing declaration of the innovation of the idea, the significance of the moment, and, most of all, the importance of New York. The proposers believed that this city -- “the greatest social science laboratory in the world” -- would attract scholars ...
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New York is the Place

Reconsidering the History of Race through Peyote

How categories of belonging are made in Mexico

Loyalties begin with a sense of belonging, a sense of who is on the inside and who is on the outside. I suppose that historians almost invariably interrogate notions of loyalty as we imagine our historical subjects; how they experienced their connections and obligations, and how this in turned shaped ...
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Reconsidering the History of Race through Peyote

Learning to See SPURA

Reflections on urban displacement, art, and community praxis

For forty years, as New York’s Lower East Side went from disinvested to gentrified, residents lived with a wound at the heart of the neighborhood, a wasteland of vacant lots known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA). Most of the buildings on the fourteen-square-block area were condemned in ...
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Learning to See SPURA