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

From the Editors

The View from Europe

And it ain’t good

November 5, 2019 • by Claire Potter

It’s refreshing to spend time in a place where everyone isn’t obsessed with the Occupant of the White House, but it’s also now strange to be in Berlin, a place where the United States was once so relevant -- and is now so irrelevant. A colleague from Croatia told me kindly that America ...

From the Editors

Our Contemporary Political Landscape

October 30, 2019 • by Claire Potter

This week we begin thinking about the present by contemplating about the past: senior editor Alex Aleinikoff looks to Auschwitz to understand why the Trump Administration deliberately inflicts suffering on migrants to the United States. “I will not enter into the discussion of whether the detention facilities to which children ...

North America

Slow But Steady Wins the Race

Warren leads Pete, Joe and Bernie in new poll

October 25, 2019 • by Claire Potter

Warren 28% Buttigieg 20% Sanders 18% Biden 12% Even if this is an outlier poll (Real Clear Politics has a list of four different ones that ...

From the Editors

It’s Impeachment Season

October 23, 2019 • by Claire Potter

But we are all one country, aren't we? Because everywhere in the United States it’s impeachment season. Half the time at Public Seminar, we’ll believe it when we see it, but as of today, it looks like Donald Trump is finally on the ropes and taking a beating. Click here to ...

From the Editors

A Penny for Your Thoughts

On capitalism, the nation and war

October 15, 2019 • by Claire Potter

Our second pressing issue is nationalism – but with a twist. Reviving a roundtable discussion from last spring about Jill Lepore’s majestic survey of United States history, These Truths (2019), we ask: what is “the nation”? How do we study it – and who is included? Why do popular histories of ...

From the Editors

Read Slowly – If You Can

October 9, 2019 • by Claire Potter

We want you to come back to our new platform over and over again during the week, to savor the articles we have chosen for you, articles organized as a conversation about pressing issues. Go ahead: bookmark us on your device and your laptop. Now, every time you find yourself ...

Sex & Gender

We Were All Ex-Prom Queens

Alix Kates Shulman on sexism, consciousness raising and the re-issue of a classic feminist novel.

October 7, 2019 • by Claire Potter and Alix Kates Shulman

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Alix Kates Shulman [AKS]: In 1968, the first national demonstration of the women’s liberation movement took place on September seventh in Atlantic City. It was the protest against the Miss America Pageant. And as we were marching for hours and hours carrying ...

Feature

Welcome to the New Public Seminar

Marking the New School’s centennial year with a refreshed platform and a renewed commitment to conversation

September 30, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, James Miller and Claire Potter

Everything you have always found at Public Seminar is still here. But we’ve redesigned the site to let you let you slow down, if you want to. Public Seminar’s commitment to discussing the pressing issues of our contemporary world also now includes a commitment to contemplation, to doing more with less, and at the ...

Exiles on 12th Street

Futures

Exiles on 12th Street, Episode Five

September 23, 2019 • by Claire Potter

The future can sometimes seem daunting and frightening, but it can also feel like an unwritten adventure. As children, we played in a world of infinite possibilities, in which imagination—not predestination—ruled the day. In the fifth episode of Exiles on 12th Street, we explore possibilities the future may hold. From ...

Feature

Elizabeth Warren Stays Off the Pollercoaster and with the People

Reflections from the crowd at the Washington Square Park rally

September 18, 2019 • by Claire Potter

So that’s what I set out to do when I attended Elizabeth Warren’s rally in New York City on Monday, an event that seems to have jolted the mainstream media into noticing her "slow but steady wins the race" campaigning style. As one young staffer said to me cheerfully -- ...

Exiles on 12th Street

Crime Stories

Exiles on 12th Street, Episode Four

August 8, 2019 • by Claire Potter

A skyrocketing homicide rate, a powerful American Mafia, and a burgeoning drug culture plagued 20th century New York. The high incidence of crime led to sensationalist news coverage and caused less privileged victims’ voices to go unheard. Our fourth episode focuses on crime, telling the stories of Kitty Genovese and ...

Exiles on 12th Street

Kicking and Screaming: Stonewall at 50

Exiles on 12th Street: Episode Three

June 28, 2019 • by Claire Potter

This is the third episode in Public Seminar’s podcast, Exiles on 12th Street. If you like it, go to iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe. The Stonewall riots that took place in New York in June 1969 are widely credited with catalyzing the modern LGBT+ civil rights movement. Join us as ...