Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research

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>

Higher Ed

The American University of Afghanistan and Me

At a moment of tragedy and upheaval, sociologist Jeffrey Goldfarb found new colleagues and students on the internet

February 22, 2023 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am teaching at the American University of Afghanistan in exile....

The American University of Afghanistan and Me

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

Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy and Its Culture

The dangers of a new tyranny of a minority in our time

January 30, 2023 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

On the central problems of race, gender and sexuality, and class, Tocqueville is not the best of guides in considering today’s crisis of democracy in America. Nonetheless, I still think that Tocqueville has much to offer in understanding America and the present crisis in our democracy....

Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy and Its Culture

Uncategorized

For Want of Wild Beasts

For many in Eastern Europe, prison was the hallmark of Communism. Today, the United States is experiencing its own carceral society. What can be learnt from this comparison and can we redefine the term “political prisoner”?

February 1, 2022 • by Reginald Dwayne Betts, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Irena Grudzińska-Gross and Marci Shore

How do we understand both the uses and disadvantages of thinking across time and space? How do we negotiate the fact that in any biography or historical event, there are both elements that are unique, and elements that are universal? For me, these questions belonged to a larger question: namely, ...

The New School

Remembering Michael E. Gellert

Not just a benefactor but a friend, this émigré from Central European knew that the act of listening was the future of democracy

August 23, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

_____ One of the great honors of my life was to be named the Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology in May of 1999. At the time, I was very pleased because it recognized the value of my scholarship, teaching and service to the New School and the broader public. But ...

Uncategorized

Retiring Does Not Mean Throwing in the Towel

Closing one chapter on work allows so much else to begin

August 11, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

_____ I’m out of there! I’ve stepped down as a tenured professor at The New School for Social Research. I came up through the ranks, advancing from Assistant Professor to Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology. Along the way, there were stints as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Liberal ...

Retiring Does Not Mean Throwing in the Towel

Feature

My Arrest in Poland

The authorities hadn’t expected an American to be at this obscure performance

July 7, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

_____ “At the time the circumstances of my arrest in Poland seemed trivial. I hardly thought about them afterward. But now, when I consider the fall of 1989, and the fall of communism, my little run in with the Polish authorities seems highly suggestive of how things were then and what ...

Democracy

The Chauvin Verdict and Common Sense

Further reflections on democracy and social justice

April 29, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am relieved by the verdict and, of course, I’m not alone. We knew that Chauvin was guilty as sin: the racist, apparently remorseless, cold blooded killer of George Floyd. It was clear as day, common sense. But common sense has failed us when it comes to American policing and ...

Migration

On the Uses and Disadvantages of Historical Comparisons for Life

A conversation between Irena Grudzińska-Gross and Dwayne Betts

April 22, 2021 • by Reginald Dwayne Betts, Irena Grudzińska-Gross, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb and Marci Shore

Marci: As you know, the original impetus for this forum was horror of the children being taken away from their parents at the American border, and my saying to Stephen Naron that we should use material from the Fortunoff archive to prepare a film about parent-child separation during the Holocaust. ...

On the Uses and Disadvantages of Historical Comparisons for Life

Democracy

Democracy and Social Justice

On the significance of C.T. Vivian and Adam Michnik

March 11, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The New York Times, April 26, 1984: “A Polish Nobel laureate in exile stood in a church on lower Fifth Avenue yesterday and read an open letter of moral outrage from a jailed dissident in Poland to his jailer. The letter, as another speaker put it, fell like ''a tornado'' on the ...

Democracy

Hopeful New Year!

Five Notes Against Despair, 2021

January 14, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The Covid-19 pandemic is spreading and is ineffectively controlled, as is the global political pandemic, spectacularly on view in Washington, D.C. White supremacy and politicized misogyny, homophobia and transphobia are becoming ever more virulent, supporting an ascendent right-wing authoritarianism around the world. Economic and social inequalities are increasing, as police ...