theme-democracy Archives - Public Seminar

Feature

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.

Disability

What’s Next for the Health Care Debate?

A Demand for Process and Transparency

August 5, 2017 • by Miranda Yaver

While the Senate was voting on the motion to proceed with the straight repeal plan that would eliminate coverage for millions of Americans, I was in the exam room of my doctor’s office, and using my newly-acquired Medicaid for the first time. How did I feel? Suffice it to say that ...

Feature

The Failure to Repeal and Replace Obamacare

Trumpism as Extremism’s Endgame

July 31, 2017 • by Sanford Schram

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has failed to get his chamber to join the House of Representatives in passing a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has handed President Donald Trump a major defeat that now tops the list of non-accomplishments of Trump’s failed presidency. In his daily ...

The Failure to Repeal and Replace Obamacare

Feature

The Mo(u)rning After

Finding Words for Political Disaster

November 9, 2016 • by Claire Potter

Waking up in a state of mourning after Donald Trump's horrifying victory in yesterday's presidential election has caused me to take refuge in one of my favorite childhood movies. The Poseidon Adventure was released in 1972, as political life in the United States was turning from explosion to implosion. This cheesy ...

Theory & Practice

Hannah and Me: Understanding Politics in Dark Times

March 4, 2015 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Contrary to the suggestion of my informal title, I did not study with Hannah Arendt, nor were we ever colleagues, although I missed both experiences only by a bit. I was a graduate student in the early 1970s in one of the universities where she last taught, the University of ...

Uncategorized

Arendt, Eichmann, and Thoughtlessness

March 2, 2015 • by Christoph Menke

According to Arendt’s emphatic and paradoxical thesis, [Eichmann] was an enemy of humanity from “thoughtlessness.” “It was a sheer thoughtlessness -- something by no means identical with stupidity -- that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period” (285; G: 57).* This (and only this) is ...

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 ...

Uncategorized

African Style Democracy?

February 2, 2015 • by William Gumede

Alarmingly a question being increasingly asked is whether democracy has failed in Africa, or similarly, whether democracy is unworkable or perhaps not suitable for Africa: this, given the fact that many African countries, which are supposedly democratic, are characterised by dreadful human rights abuses, ethnic conflicts, life presidents and economic ...

Uncategorized

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, ...

Europe & Central Asia

We Say No to the “Sacred Union”

January 22, 2015 • by Public Voices

In the aftermath of the killings at Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher, critical voices have largely been drowned in the general sea of undifferentiated outrage. But this statement by French colleagues, which recently appeared in Le Monde, is a major intervention and a welcome exception.

...

Uncategorized

A Tribute to Economist Bernard Maris (Sept. 23, 1946 – Jan. 7, 2015)

January 16, 2015 • by Karim Errouaki

I was shocked to learn that Bernard Maris had been murdered at a meeting of the editors of Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015. He died at his desk, killed by the fanaticism that he regularly denounced.

Bernard Maris was an economist and a member of the governing board ...

A Tribute to Economist Bernard Maris (Sept. 23, 1946 – Jan. 7, 2015)

Race

A Postcard from France: A Canadian in Avignon

January 14, 2015 • by Benjamin Evans

To provide some context for what follows: I live in France, in the small southern city of Avignon. My wife, Audrey, is French, but I’m not. I, like so many others here, am “an immigrant.” Recent events have made the last few days emotionally and intellectually complex. I’ve been, at ...