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

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The Facebook Follies

Deleting your account won’t un-elect Trump

March 28, 2018 • by Claire Potter

What harm does Facebook do? In the last several months, it appears to have done plenty, opening its platform to operatives who were directly or indirectly employed by the Trump campaign. There is always someone new to blame for electing Donald Trump: depending on who you ask, it was Bernie ...

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Is (Cynthia) Nixon the One?

The yearning for celebrity candidates

March 21, 2018 • by Claire Potter

I had heard the rumors that Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon planned to primary New York's Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, but I didn't believe them. It made so little sense to me that I ignored it until yesterday, when Nixon actually declared her candidacy. According to the Siena College poll ...

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Pennsylvania Had a Little Lamb

A special election in PA-18 shows the limits of Trumpism

March 14, 2018 • by Claire Potter

I didn't stay up last night to see Conor Lamb bring the eighteenth Pennsylvania congressional district back to the Democrats. I think this result will stand, although I think we have to presume that if the final margin is under 1,000 votes, the lawyers will go to work on it, creating ...

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Is Women’s Solidarity Possible?

To be a successful movement, feminism has had to ignore its failure with conservative women

March 7, 2018 • by Claire Potter

Tomorrow is International Women's Day. Don't do housework—let men do it (that is, should you own a man: we don't at my house, so we would have to rent or borrow one.) Don't do paid work. Don't shop—except at female and minority-owned small business (should you be able to locate ...

Education

Teachers Are Not Soldiers

Or, why I didn’t buy a gun after our campus shooting

February 28, 2018 • by Claire Potter

Last week, I published a conversation with an old friend about the possibilities for curbing gun violence following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, an incident that left 17 teachers and students dead. Many other students, despite being wounded and traumatized, have stepped forward to ...

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Public Seminar is Back, LIVE from #CPAC2018

Friday, February 23 2018

February 23, 2018 • by Claire Potter

1:21 PM: It is really not the same thing to watch Donald Trump on television as it is to watch him in person. First of all, when you watch on TV, if you need to go to the bathroom, you can. But when you are live, and a speech goes on ...

Public Seminar is Back, LIVE from #CPAC2018

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Public Seminar is LIVE from #CPAC2018

Thursday, February 22 2018

February 22, 2018 • by Claire Potter

3:20 PM: Ted Cruz is absolutely running for President in 2020. Cruz ran onto the stage with that candidate look, waving and spreading his arms wide to make himself look bigger than he is. "I love CPAC!" he shouted, and for the first time since I entered the press pen, the conversation ...

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After the Parkland Massacre, What?

A conversation between left and right about gun control

February 21, 2018 • by Claire Potter

Joseph Castillo and I met in the fall of 1976 as first year students at Yale University. He was from the southwest, I was from the Northeast; he was a science major, and I was an English major. Joe became an engineer and entrepreneur and I became a history professor, ...

Education

Are the Humanities Really in Crisis?

Or is it the university that deserves our attention?

February 14, 2018 • by Claire Potter

At the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, I was lucky enough to moderate a conversation between Earl Lewis, the outgoing President of the Mellon Foundation, and William D. "Bro" Adams, the former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The conversation had actually begun a few ...

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BREAKING: Angela Davis Papers Go To Schlesinger Library

A unique and rare collection

February 13, 2018 • by Claire Potter

This text, provided by the Schlesinger Library, was just received by Public Seminar as breaking news. The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study today announced its acquisition of the papers of prominent political activist and pioneering feminist ...

BREAKING: Angela Davis Papers Go To Schlesinger Library

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Why We Return to Certain Books Like Clockwork

On my return to Martin Guerre

February 7, 2018 • by Claire Potter

When people ask me what I am teaching this semester, I bury the lede. I first describe my exciting, five-section strong introduction to Internet studies. Then there is the big reveal: "I am also teaching a core course in our history graduate program," I continue, "with a super-sexy title: Historical Methods!" ...

Why We Return to Certain Books Like Clockwork

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A Lot of Things Are Broken

Why focusing on sex won’t fix sexual harassment

January 31, 2018 • by Claire Potter

This post was originally published by Eurozine and was accompanied by three other posts that Public Seminar will repost later this week. Following the first wave of the #MeToo movement, a new phase of reflection has set in. Here, four authors and journal editors from the US and Europe assess #MeToo's ...