Interviews Archives - Public Seminar

Interviews

Ghosting: How Technology Is Changing Our Hope for Connection

A conversation with author Dominic Pettman on how the phenomenon of ghosting is experienced in the modern age

March 26, 2026 • by Mariana Giacobbe Goldberg and Dominic Pettman

Ghosting: when someone just stops replying to messages, stops returning calls, and for all intents and purposes vanishes without warning from your life. The term names the sudden ending of a relationship, through disappearance rather than a clear confrontation or closing act: It describes a mode of withdrawal by absence ...

Ghosting: How Technology Is Changing Our Hope for Connection

Interviews

Fresh Hope for Labor

A conversation with labor historian Dave Kamper on the growing strength of American unions, as recounted in his new book, Who’s Got the Power?

March 12, 2026 • by Shea Dean and Dave Kamper

In his new book Who’s Got the Power? The Resurgence of American Unions (The New Press, 2025), labor writer and organizer Dave Kamper delivers a bit of good news in a dark time. “Much of the last half century has, for the labor movement, sucked beyond the telling,” he writes. ...

Interviews

The Return of the Oppressed

A conversation with Robert Fieseler on American Scare and the recovery of queer history long obscured by state censorship

March 11, 2026 • by Robert W. Fieseler and Katelyn Kimberlin

“I kept wondering why it felt like we were all living in the United States of Florida,” says Robert W. Fieseler. In his new book, American Scare: Florida's Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives (Penguin Random House, 2025), Fieseler examines the forces shaping the fastest-growing state in the ...

Interviews

Larissa Pham on Her New Novel, Discipline, and Finding Truth in Disaster

On the elasticity of art, the detritus of memory, and making the reader sweat

February 17, 2026 • by Jacqueline LeKachman and Larissa Pham

Larissa Pham’s new novel, Discipline (Random House, 2026), started out as something else entirely. “I was going to write ten really gnomic, mysterious meditations on American paintings,” she told me, as we chatted on a snowy day in January. “I have this whole fantasy of writing these weird meditations. And ...

Larissa Pham on Her New Novel, <em>Discipline</em>, and Finding Truth in Disaster

History

Portsmouth, Displacement, and Belonging in The Tears of Other People

A conversation with author E. M. Ippolito about the settler colonialist roots of modern displacement and urban renewal

February 12, 2026 • by E. M. Ippolito and Eva Szilardi-Tierney

E. M. Ippolito’s relationship to her hometown of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is a complicated one. While Ippolito’s exploration of Portsmouth’s working-class history began when she was a college student, it was her own displacement from Portsmouth that personalized her research. Learning the story of Portsmouth’s 1960s urban renewal—a federally funded ...

Portsmouth, Displacement, and Belonging in <em>The Tears of Other People</em>

Interviews

Finding the Equator

A conversation on the failures of Western media after Gaza and a new cosmopolitan publication that answers the call for change

December 17, 2025 • by Mariana Giacobbe Goldberg and Suzy Hansen

Suzy Hansen is an author and journalist whose work examines the blind spots of American liberalism and the failures of Western journalism. She is one of the founding editors of Equator, a new online publication created in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, to address censorship in liberal media coverage. ...

Artificial Intelligence

First as Comedy, Then as Farce

A conversation with Benjamin Mangrum on the assembly of The Comedy of Computation

December 16, 2025 • by Benjamin Mangrum and Rayna Salam

When confronted with change we don’t understand, there is only one thing to do: laugh. Or so says MIT literature professor Benjamin Mangrum. In his new book, The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence (Stanford University Press, 2025), Mangrum peers into the archives ...

Film

Paolo Sorrentino on his new movie, La Grazia

An interview with the Italian film director on ordinariness, doubt, and jealousy at the heart of his new film

December 8, 2025 • by Mitchell Abidor and Paolo Sorrentino

Editorial note: This interview contains spoilers. Paolo Sorrentino’s films are grand affairs, with elaborate camerawork and stunning settings underscored by memorable music. The plots match the grandeur of the mise-en-scène. In his new film, La Grazia, the purely cinematic elements of the film remain grand—and at times knowingly bizarre, like the ...

Paolo Sorrentino on his new movie, <em>La Grazia</em>

Interviews

Fascism’s Body Politics

A conversation with Dagmar Herzog on disability under fascism in her new book, The New Fascist Body

November 25, 2025 • by Dagmar Herzog and Adam Koehler Brown

"How do we recognize a fascism when we see one?" This is the opening line from Dagmar Herzog's new book, The New Fascist Body (Wirklichkeit Books, 2025). A leading historian of sexuality, disability, and German politics, Herzog now turns her attention to the frightening continuities between past and present authoritarian forces. ...

Interviews

Susan Cheever on Her New Book, When All the Men Wore Hats

When the writing writes itself

November 20, 2025 • by Elizabeth Mirabelle and Susan Cheever

I met Susan Cheever at the Carl Schurz Park dog run, on the Upper East Side, to discuss her latest book, When All the Men Wore Hats (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2025). It’s her usual morning haunt: a place where she gives her beloved Corgi a bit of free-roaming exercise, ...

Susan Cheever on Her New Book, <em>When All the Men Wore Hats</em>

Interviews

Animated by Not Knowing

A conversation with Wendy Xu on thinking through poetry in Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds: Form, Futurity, and Documentary Desire

October 16, 2025 • by Gabriel Chavez and Wendy Xu

Poet and educator Wendy Xu’s new book, Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds: Form, Futurity, and Documentary Desire (University of Michigan Press, 2025), traverses multiple genres of poetry, poetry criticism, essay, and memoir, presenting close readings and “thinking-throughs” of works by poets such as Layli Long Soldier, Inger Christensen, Ocean ...

Art & Design

Imperfect Images

Sohrab Hura on slowing down time in a survey show at MoMA PS1

October 2, 2025 • by Alexandra Chaves and Sohrab Hura

Sohrab Hura began his career in film and photography documenting social issues across India and has been a full-time member of Magnum Photos since 2020. Over the years, his practice has expanded to include publishing, drawing, and writing in an ongoing investigation into the relationship between the personal and the ...

Interviews

Fresh Hope for Labor

A conversation with labor historian Dave Kamper on the growing strength of American unions, as recounted in his new book, Who’s Got the Power?

The Return of the Oppressed

A conversation with Robert Fieseler on American Scare and the recovery of queer history long obscured by state censorship

Larissa Pham on Her New Novel, Discipline, and Finding Truth in Disaster

On the elasticity of art, the detritus of memory, and making the reader sweat

Portsmouth, Displacement, and Belonging in The Tears of Other People

A conversation with author E. M. Ippolito about the settler colonialist roots of modern displacement and urban renewal

Finding the Equator

A conversation on the failures of Western media after Gaza and a new cosmopolitan publication that answers the call for change

First as Comedy, Then as Farce

A conversation with Benjamin Mangrum on the assembly of The Comedy of Computation

Paolo Sorrentino on his new movie, La Grazia

An interview with the Italian film director on ordinariness, doubt, and jealousy at the heart of his new film

Fascism’s Body Politics

A conversation with Dagmar Herzog on disability under fascism in her new book, The New Fascist Body

Susan Cheever on Her New Book, When All the Men Wore Hats

When the writing writes itself

Animated by Not Knowing

A conversation with Wendy Xu on thinking through poetry in Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds: Form, Futurity, and Documentary Desire

Imperfect Images

Sohrab Hura on slowing down time in a survey show at MoMA PS1

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