region-americas Archives - Public Seminar

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Welcome the stranger. Defend democracy. And defend ourselves.

Some perhaps surprising initial thoughts about the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting

October 28, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

First things first. The shootings are despicable and outrageous, and they are both awful in themselves and a symptom of a much deeper and more extensive poison that is being spread throughout the country by Donald Trump and by every politician, whether Republican or Democrat, who in any way draws from ...

Welcome the stranger. Defend democracy. And defend ourselves.

Race

The Muslims are Coming! Video of Arun Kundani’s Lecture

Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic war on terror

February 26, 2015 • by Zeyno Ustun

This lecture by Arun Kundani, Adjunct Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, was part of the NSSR Sociology Lecture Series. It took place on February 9, 2015, in the Wolff Conference Room of the Vera List Academic Center at 6 E. 16th St. in New York.

Over the last few ...

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An Interview with Lance Taylor on Inequality

February 11, 2015 • by Lance Taylor

In a new paper for the Institute For New Economic Thinking’s Working Group on the Political Economy of Distribution, economist Lance Taylor and his colleagues examine income inequality using new tools and models that give us a more nuanced -- and frightening -- picture than ...

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Clinical Psychology, Psychological Science, and Neo-liberal Times

January 30, 2015 • by Jeremy Safran

Clinical psychology first emerged as a formal subdiscipline within psychology in the aftermath of World War II. During the war, psychologists were initially hired by the military to play a role assessing recruits for psychological stability, combat readiness, and potential for officer training. They were also charged with the task ...
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Argentina in Shock

A mysterious death in Buenos Aires raises questions about the true sources of power inside Argentina’s state

January 27, 2015 • by Fabián Bosoer and Federico Finchelstein

A federal prosecutor in a democratic state accuses the elected president of a major cover-up. Alberto Nisman is scheduled to explain the cover-up in Argentina's congress when, hours before testifying, he mysteriously dies in his apartment. What kind of democracy allows this to happen? In the context of such events, ...
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Race

A Crowd of Whites, A Sea of Blue

A Report from Cleveland

December 31, 2014 • by Chris Crews

This past week hundreds of residents gathered in downtown Cleveland for a “Sea of Blue” rally to show support for police officers and law enforcement official across the nation. The rally, held in Public Square in response to the recent shooting of two NYPD officers and to counter ...
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Season’s Greetings and the War on Christmas

December 25, 2014 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Consider season’s greetings. For many, these are unselfconscious gestures. But for others, they are loaded with significance. While we can together celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah after Thanksgiving, along with the new New Year, showing respect for each other, some prefer to exclude. There are the combatants against <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/03/bill-oreilly-war-on-christmas-2014-fox-news_n_6264254.html" ...
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Race

Reflections on Ferguson

November 26, 2014 • by Angela Jones

I have spent much of my academic career researching and writing about the Civil Rights Movement. Today, I am heartbroken, and I believe my greatest heroes would be too -- Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, William Monroe Trotter, Ida B. Wells, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr., ...
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A Matter of Deep Concern: On Recent Events in Mexico

November 17, 2014 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Nancy Fraser brought to my attention yesterday two letters of protest concerning recent atrocities in Mexico. The matter is tragic. The need for response is clear. A letter drafted by Maria Pia Lara Zavala, Visiting Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research: An Open Letter to the International Academic Community: By now ...
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LGBTQI Rights and Brazil’s Presidential Election

Controversy and the necessity to go beyond elections

November 14, 2014 • by Tulio Heleno de Aguiar Bucchioni

For the first time in Brazil's recent democratic history, which began in 1984 after the country's twenty-one-year long dictatorship ended, the LGBTQI rights have appeared as the main controversial topic in this year’s presidential election. In the space of two weeks during the election first round, the topic got more ...
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America as a Lottery

November 7, 2014 • by James Miller

In a series of recent works on the rise of inequality in the United States and other countries, economists have proposed a number of policies that might help reverse current trends. But critics of Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Thomas Piketty also often complain that their proposals aren’t feasible ...
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Why Obama is Responsible for the Debacle of his Presidency

November 3, 2014 • by Eli Zaretsky

Recognizing that there is a deep personal or individual aspect to Obama’s failure to seize the opportunity offered him in 2008 is a prerequisite for moving on. Without that recognition, we will remain trapped in the faux-progressive sludge of the Obama era, which tells us how hard it is to ...
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