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

From the Editors

Our Gift for You

Greetings of the season from all of us to all of you

December 25, 2019 • by Claire Potter

But here’s a real gift for you, from real people: this week’s issue of Public Seminar which, according to our tradition, is just as secular – and just as free -- as it is the rest of the year. This week we begin with a recap of impeachment doings by senior editor Jeffrey Isaac ...

From the Editors

We Are Getting Texts from Donald Trump

And we fantasize about writing back

December 18, 2019 • by Claire Potter

We admit that we have neglected the President, and we will continue to do so – despite Melania's BEAUTIFUL photos. But if we were to text the President back, it would be with the good news that Public Seminar has, once again, curated a weekly issue that encourages him to ...

From the Editors

Looking Uptown

Public Seminar reports from the center of the world

December 11, 2019 • by Claire Potter

In Democracy, senior editor Maria Bucur offers us a two-part reflection on Romania where, she argues, the 2019 presidential elections signal a populism in retreat. In her second essay, however, Bucur points to an underlying corruption that has become harder to fight since the Trump administration, as part of the campaign against Democratic presidential candidate ...

North America

I Would Love to Vote for a Gay President

But Pete Buttigieg is not my guy

December 4, 2019 • by Claire Potter

Many remember this loss because of Dean’s cowboy moment at the lectern. Masochists and political junkies can watch the famous “scream” that provoked endless media mockery here. But the swift collapse of the Dean campaign following Iowa also revealed other weaknesses that early polling had not: the excitement of this ...

I Would Love to Vote for a Gay President

From the Editors

If It’s Wednesday….

It must be Public Seminar

December 4, 2019 • by Claire Potter

It’s exhausting, isn’t it? But here comes Public Seminar, which is free (although donations are welcome -- phone lines are open!) and it always will be free. And have we got great issue for you this week. We are starting off another cluster on Democracy with a report from Laszlo Bruszt on the ...

From the Editors

Hello, Pilgrim

A Public Seminar Thanksgiving

November 27, 2019 • by Claire Potter

It has been 398 years since the first Thanksgiving in the New World: held in October, it occurred after the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony completed their harvest. Fifty-three English people and 90 Wampanoags indigenous to the region partied for three days. Unlike other English colonies in Virginia, where ...

Putting Yourself On the Line: Talking Social Justice With Douglas White and Cidra Sebastien

Excerpt from episode 2 of Exiles on 12th Street, “The Fire This Time”

November 26, 2019 • by Claire Potter

Arrested three times for his participation in Civil Rights protests in the nineteen-fifties, Douglas White was a founding member of Yale University’s Black Law Students Union, and was the New York State Commissioner for Human Rights and deputy commissioner of the New York Fire Department. Community organizer Cidra M. Sebastien is the associate executive director of The Brotherhood-Sister Sol, a community youth ...

Exiles on 12th Street

An Interview with Novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge

An excerpt from episode 6 of Exiles on 12th Street

November 26, 2019 • by Claire Potter

In the following excerpt from “The New Negro” episode of the Exiles on 12th Street podcast, historian and Public Seminar co-executive editor Claire Potter talks to Brooklyn-based novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge about the new generation of Black writers and artists. Kaitlyn Greenidge (KG): We are writing in a post Obama world, right? So we're writing when this thing ...

Exiles on 12th Street

The New Negro

Exiles on 12th Street, Episode Six

November 21, 2019 • by Claire Potter

In April, we covered the Civil Rights movement and the fight against racism in “The Fire This Time.” This month, we explore the lasting impact of the Harlem Renaissance in “The New Negro,” as our guests take us on a journey through art, culture, and politics. Author A’Lelia Bundles shares ...

From the Editors

As We Contemplate Change

We look at what’s possible, who makes it possible, and how people move policy

November 20, 2019 • by Claire Potter

So let’s start with how change happens. Economist James K. Galbraith leads off our politics section this week with an analysis of Bernie Sanders’ economic platform: can Bernie do all these things? Read it and find out. Next, we turn to a reflection on activism, as Nick Estes interviews Native American ...

From the Editors

It’s Getting Dark Out There

Thank heaven we all have a laptop and Public Seminar

November 13, 2019 • by Claire Potter

We are also interested in technology this month, with a terrific essay about digital infrastructure and smart factories from Birgit Mahnkopf: to read the second part of this essay, you’ll have to head over to our new friends at Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, a German web magazine in the Eurozine network. Look out ...

From the Editors

It’s Getting Dark Out There

Thank heaven we all have a laptop and Public Seminar

November 13, 2019 • by Claire Potter

We are also interested in technology this month, with a terrific essay about digital infrastructure and smart factories from Birgit Mahnkopf: to read the second part of this essay, you’ll have to head over to our new friends at Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, a German web magazine in the Eurozine network. Look out ...