From the Editors Archives - Page 109 of 172

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The Feminist Eagles

How High School Activism Is On The Rise

January 4, 2018 • by Sari Rosenberg

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary recently announced that “feminism” was the most searched for word in 2017. Several key historical moments last year prompted this spike, including the January 21st Women’s March and the recent #MeToo campaign. Our societal reckoning with the deeply entrenched patriarchal structure and institutional racism has been a long time ...

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2017: A Year of Reaction and Resistance

What About 2018?

January 4, 2018 • by Peter Dreier

Last year, 2017, began with President Donald Trump lying about the size of his inauguration crowd and ended with his lying about the size of the benefits he’ll get from the new tax bill. The year began with the largest protest marches in American history -- the five million strong ...

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Sexual Harassment and #MenToo

The Five Stages of Belief

January 4, 2018 • by John Stoltenberg

The headlines are full of revelations of sexual harassment by men in power, and women, who are typically the targets of harassers, are “getting it” -- in many cases coming to new consciousness about the pervasive effects of men’s sense of sexual entitlement. Many men, though, are having trouble wrapping ...

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What Do We Want from the News?

Steven Spielberg’s The Post

January 3, 2018 • by Claire Potter

What do we want from the news? This strikes me as an increasingly important question as the task of actually getting the news requires that we sift gigabytes of knowledge, errata, and trash all mixed up together on the Internet. Do we want to be entertained by the news, as David ...

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Working On The Work of Working Out

A history of fitness in America

January 3, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

“You don’t want to be an aerobics instructor forever, do you?” Condescending and incredulous, the Rolling Stone journalist played by John Travolta asks this question of Jessie (Jamie Lee Curtis), his costar and L.A. fitness queen in the 1985 film Perfect. Jessie’s celebrity in the superficial, slightly louche, SoCal workout scene is portrayed as ...

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#Charlottesville: Before and Beyond

Public Seminar is launching a collection of essays that reflect on and respond to the violence in Charlottesville in August 2017

January 2, 2018 • by The Editors

These events occurred a year after a bitterly divisive election brought problems of racism, white identity politics, and America’s fraught history of racism to the fore. The violence that ensued — four casualties, including the murder of counter-protester Heather Heyer — left the country bewildered, angry, and frightened about ascendant ...

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Film review: Champ of the Camp

The first ever feature-length documentary filmed in the UAE’s controversial labor camps

January 1, 2018 • by Elena Gagovska

Mahmoud Kaabour’s film Champ of the Camp (2014) opens with the song by a South Asian man set against the backdrop of a modernistic building covered in glass windows. The song is called “Long Separation” and the setting is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Such juxtaposition runs throughout the movie: the poor ...

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“Cat Person,” Black Maternal Mortality, and Elf on the Shelf

Past Present Episode 112

January 1, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this week's episode, Neil, Niki, and Natalia debate the viral New Yorker short story “Cat Person”, the disproportionately high maternal death rate among black women, and the Elf on the Shelf phenomenon.

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“Cat Person,” Black Maternal Mortality, and Elf on the Shelf

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Women Rule?

We’re Getting Closer

December 31, 2017 • by Jo Freeman

We may be in for another Year of the Woman. The last year to get that designation was 1992, which saw a great leap upward in the number of women elected to Congress, from 29 to 47 in the House and from 2 to 7 in the Senate. This followed ...

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Etiquette Books, a Royal Engagement, and National Monuments

Past Present Episode 111

December 30, 2017 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Natalia, Niki, and Neil debate the resurgence of etiquette books, the announcement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal engagement, and President Trump’s decision to limit the size of two national monuments.

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Etiquette Books, a Royal Engagement, and National Monuments

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Happy New Year!

A Note from the “Publisher”

December 29, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

A.G. Sulzberger became the publisher of The New York Times this month, as I became the publisher of Public Seminar. I find this coincidence pretty funny, though perhaps you have to be me to get the joke. The Times is a great institution, though ultimately just a family business. “A.G.” is ...

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Rally in DC for Palestine

Jerusalem is the demand. No embassy on stolen land.

December 29, 2017 • by Jo Freeman

Roughly two thousand people gathered on the southwest corner of the Ellipse to demand that the US not move its embassy to Jerusalem. In the shadow of the National Christmas Tree and the National Menorah, they said Jerusalem was the capital of Palestine, not Israel. While most participants stood around the platform, ...