Co-Executive Editor, Public Seminar and Professor of History, The New School for Social Research

What If Using AI Isn’t Cheating?

Meghan O’Rourke’s essay about technology’s uses and abuses makes me wonder if students can help us reinvent the humanities

September 22, 2025 • by Claire Potter

In the last 18 months, publicly available artificial intelligence (AI) programs have turned conversations about the humanities on college campuses into conversations about cheating. Do you remember when life was easy, and all you had to detect was whether a student had purchased a paper or plagiarized portions of it? I ...

Podcast

Black Children, White Schools

Episode 71: A conversation with historian Noliwe Rooks about democracy, education, and her new book Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children

April 9, 2025 • by Claire Potter

On November 14, 1960, 6-year-old Tessie Prevost woke up and put on one of her prettiest dresses. Like Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Ruby Bridges, Tessie was a very special little girl. Along with hundreds of other Black children, the New Orleans Four, as they would forever be known, had taken ...

Podcast

Fagin!

March 19, 2025 • by Claire Potter

It's about antisemitism. That’s right—a topic that was apparently unspeakable in the United States, even two years after American and Soviet soldiers liberated the first Nazi death camps. But antisemitism was unspeakable—although not as much so as homosexuality. Crossfire, another 1947 movie, was originally about a homophobic murder and rewritten as ...

Podcast

No More Girl Bosses

Episode 69: A conversation with Serene Khader about her book Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop

February 28, 2025 • by Claire Potter

On October 12, 2020, Amy Coney Barrett, a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, was sworn in for her testimony before the Republican-majority Senate Judiciary Committee. If you were a Democrat and a feminist, it was a galling moment for so many reasons. First, the United ...

Podcast

Arise, Ye Workers From Your Slumbers

Episode 68: A conversation with Maurice Isserman about American radicalism, past and present, and his new book, Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism

February 19, 2025 • by Claire Potter

For years now, those of us who are paying attention have heard a range of political positions, from those held by moderate Democrats to socialism, described by MAGA Republicans as something called “the Left.” Sometimes “the Left” is simply invoked by the shorthand “they,” as in: “They tried to assassinate ...

Podcast

The Great American Crack-Up

Episode 67: Julian Zelizer asks us to reimagine political division as a good thing in a conversation about his new book, In Defense of Partisanship

February 10, 2025 • by Claire Potter

Back in 2016, like about a million other fans, I was listening obsessively to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway show, Hamilton: An American Musical. Unlike a lot of stage-door Johnnies, I am a historian of the United States. So, when my friend and colleague Renée Romano called to suggest we edit a collection ...

History

Israel’s American History

On Israel’s ambivalent relationship with the United States and OZ Frankel’s latest book, Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets: Israel in the American Orbit, 1967–1973

January 29, 2025 • by Oz Frankel and Claire Potter

Historian Oz Frankel's new book, Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets: Israel in the American Orbit, 1967–1973 (Stanford University Press, 2024), examines the multifaceted and contradictory presence of the United States in Israel during a short but significant period of history. In a conversation with Claire Potter, Frankel shares the ...

Podcast

How We Fight

Epidosde 64: A conversation with Krystale E. Littlejohn and Rickie Solinger about why the campaign for reproductive justice is also a struggle for our collective future

December 4, 2024 • by Claire Potter

Why Now? host Claire Potter interviews Krystale E. Littlejohn and Rickie Solinger about abortion in the United States today....

Podcast

To The Constitution, With Love

Episode 63: A conversation with historian Mary Ellen Curtain about her book She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan’s Life and Legacy in Black Politics

November 20, 2024 • by Claire Potter

In the summer of 1974, I was glued to the television for most of the day. For the first time in my life, my parents didn’t insist that I shut it off, go outside—do something useful. That was Watergate Summer, the weeks that a national drama played out all day on ...

Podcast

We Shall Not Be Moved

Episode 62: David Greenberg on nonviolent resistance, the legacy of an iconic civil rights organizer, and his new book, John Lewis: A Life

November 4, 2024 • by Claire Potter

There is no question that Donald Trump, a former President who is on the ballot next Tuesday, November 5, is not only a man in love with violence, but one who also understands violence as a way to get what he wants. On May 1, 1989, Trump took out a ...

Podcast

How the GOP Killed Dissent

Episode 61: Marsha E. Barrett on her new book, Nelson Rockefeller’s Dilemma: The Fight to Save Moderate Republicanism

October 24, 2024 • by Claire Potter

Ana Navarro is probably best known for her work on the popular daytime talk show, The View. But she also has serious chops as a Republican political strategist. She served on Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s staff—you may recall that Bush was leveled by Donald J. Trump early in the 2016 ...

Podcast

When We Lose, We Win

Episode 60: Talking with historian Brenda Wineapple about civil rights, culture wars, the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial and her new book, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted A Nation

October 10, 2024 • by Claire Potter

In 2016, white evangelical Christians showed up at the polls in force for Donald J. Trump, part of a diverse movement that defied expectations to sweep him into the White House. In the past decade, scholars and journalists have spilled a lot of ink on what seemed initially like a ...

Claire Potter

What If Using AI Isn’t Cheating?

Meghan O’Rourke’s essay about technology’s uses and abuses makes me wonder if students can help us reinvent the humanities

Black Children, White Schools

Episode 71: A conversation with historian Noliwe Rooks about democracy, education, and her new book Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children

Fagin!

No More Girl Bosses

Episode 69: A conversation with Serene Khader about her book Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop

Arise, Ye Workers From Your Slumbers

Episode 68: A conversation with Maurice Isserman about American radicalism, past and present, and his new book, Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism

The Great American Crack-Up

Episode 67: Julian Zelizer asks us to reimagine political division as a good thing in a conversation about his new book, In Defense of Partisanship

Israel’s American History

On Israel’s ambivalent relationship with the United States and OZ Frankel’s latest book, Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets: Israel in the American Orbit, 1967–1973

How We Fight

Epidosde 64: A conversation with Krystale E. Littlejohn and Rickie Solinger about why the campaign for reproductive justice is also a struggle for our collective future

To The Constitution, With Love

Episode 63: A conversation with historian Mary Ellen Curtain about her book She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan’s Life and Legacy in Black Politics

We Shall Not Be Moved

Episode 62: David Greenberg on nonviolent resistance, the legacy of an iconic civil rights organizer, and his new book, John Lewis: A Life

How the GOP Killed Dissent

Episode 61: Marsha E. Barrett on her new book, Nelson Rockefeller’s Dilemma: The Fight to Save Moderate Republicanism

When We Lose, We Win

Episode 60: Talking with historian Brenda Wineapple about civil rights, culture wars, the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial and her new book, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted A Nation

Newsletter

Connect With Us