James Miller, Author at Public Seminar

Philosophy

Revolutionary Ideals and the Temptations of Tyranny

A public conversation about philosophy, politics, and the fateful tropism of sincere political idealists of all types

January 29, 2026 • by Dan Edelstein, Gwenda-lin Grewal, James Miller and James Romm

The following conversation was first presented as a public panel on October 9, 2025, as part of the Henry H. Arnhold Forum on Global Challenges at the New School for Social Research. James Miller: As Dan Edelstein has shown in his important new book, The Revolution to Come, for most of ...

Revolutionary Ideals and the Temptations of Tyranny

Democracy

The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

Or, why should ordinary citizens trust unelected experts anymore?

May 8, 2025 • by Mark Frazier, James Miller, Kim Lane Scheppele and Julia Sonnevend

Good evening, my name is Jim Miller. I am a professor of politics and liberal studies at the New School for Social Research, and I have organized, and will be moderating tonight’s panel with the ungainly title, on bureaucracy and its discontents. To discuss the tensions created by professing democracy as ...

The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

Democracy

The Dictatorship of the Tech Bros—or, What Is to Be Done?

A conversation about DOGE and Trump and Musk’s attempt to smash the state

February 7, 2025 • by Forrest Deacon and James Miller

Editor’s note: In December 2024, Forrest Deacon, a Humanities lecturer at Villanova University who is also completing a dissertation in politics at the New School for Social Research, approached Public Seminar, offering to write a piece about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). At the time, this seemed like a ...

The Dictatorship of the Tech Bros—or, What Is to Be Done?

Music

The Mysteries of Taylor Swift

A symposium on a theologico-political phenomenon

February 27, 2024 • by Jack Condie, Simon Critchley, Gwenda-lin Grewal and James Miller

In this Taylor Swift symposium, New School philosophers and critical theorists dissect the mysteries of the pop star....

Politics

We Need to Facilitate Informed Debate about Israel-Palestine

A preface to the open letter in response to “Principles of Solidarity”

November 27, 2023 • by James Miller

Public Seminar's executive editor introduces an open letter reply to Normative Orders research center's "Principles of Solidarity" statement....

We Need to Facilitate Informed Debate about Israel-Palestine

From the Editors

Celebrating Claire Potter

A farewell note from Jim Miller, Executive Editor of Public Seminar

May 25, 2023 • by James Miller

We at Public Seminar wanted to treat our readers to our own personal selection of some of Claire’s greatest hits, harvested from the archives of Public Seminar....

Democracy

Bloodless Democracy?

A response to John Keane

April 11, 2023 • by James Miller

Does democracy offer any kind of solution, however partial, to ecological challenges that are inherently global, not just national, never mind local?...

Democracy

The Only Way War in Ukraine Can End

On Jessica Pisano’s Staging Democracy and the function of political theater

March 28, 2023 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, James Miller and Jessica Pisano

Zelenskyy’s approach to political leadership has been focused on creating conditions that allow people to self-mobilize and self-govern....

<strong>The Only Way War in Ukraine Can End</strong>

Democracy

American Democracy in Crisis: Q & A on Tocqueville, Douglass, Dewey, and Arendt

Liberal institutions, abolition democracy, and civic virtue

February 1, 2023 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Juliet Hooker, William Milberg, James Miller and Deva Woodly

If we think about the way that liberalism anchors democracy, it largely relies on rights and institutional design. Just as a descriptive matter, it’s the case that the institutions that have been designed and the regime of rights that has been conceived, including the regime of human rights that has ...

Democracy

Hannah Arendt: Insurrection and Constitutionalism

The democratic project is both unfinished and unstable

January 31, 2023 • by James Miller

Even though the post-war consensus over the meaning and value of specifically liberal democratic institutions seems more fragile than ever—polls show that trust in government experts and elected representatives has rarely been lower—democracy as furious dissent flourishes as rarely before, in vivid and vehement outbursts of anger at remote elites ...

Hannah Arendt: Insurrection and Constitutionalism

Announcements

Until We Meet Again

Public Seminar suspends publication until the conclusion of the part-time faculty strike at The New School

November 16, 2022 • by James Miller and Claire Potter

Public Seminar has suspended publication as of November 16, 2022, until The New School and the part-time faculty union have arrived at a new contract, allowing our part-time colleagues to return to work. We will not be accepting pitches, or answering queries, until further notice....

Philosophy

When I Was One-Dimensional

How Herbert Marcuse’s text changed my life

July 20, 2022 • by James Miller

"For their sincere reception," Cavell concludes, some life-altering texts require "the shock of conversion." Reading Marcuse, I had felt that shock, with pleasure. Few experiences are quite as rapturous as the conviction that one has embarked on a splendid new life with the firmest of good convictions: as Plato long ...