Exile from Exile

Make the University in Exile a Sanctuary

As an independent journalist in Iran, I never thought there would be a day that the paws of state would deprive me of the possibility of returning to the country where I was born and raised. After ten years of professional experience in major Iranian media outlets, I was arrested ...
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Review of Jodi Dean’s Crowds and Party

On Collectives, Communicative Capitalism, and Suspension of the Individual Ego

Nowhere was this sense more palatable than in Zucotti Park, where the #OccupyWallStreet protesters set up camp. It was a moment when, especially for the Left, the world paused as if the railroad switch of history might suddenly direct the country on a new, more equitable track. Six years later, even ...
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International Women’s Day

March 8, 2017: Something old, something new, much was borrowed, nothing blue

Women all over the world marched, rallied, and demonstrated in solidarity to commemorate International Women's Day. While the tradition was established a century ago, never before have so many women demonstrated in so many places in so many countries. To show solidarity, women wore red, whether they were demonstrating or ...
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International Women’s Day

Critical Design

By Tony Dunne & Fiona Raby

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are professors of Design and Emerging Technology at The New School and partners in the design studio Dunne & Raby. They use design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing ...
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Order from Noise

On Cambridge Analytica, Cybernetic Governance and the Technopolitical Imaginary

[No means is just a means.] – Günther Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution   “Die Stille ist das Kind der Mechanisierung; und das Unberührte der ungeheure Rest, der übrigbleibt, wenn die Menschheit sich darauf beschränkt, auf vorgeschriebenen Straßen zu fahren oder gar auf Geleisen.” [Silence ...
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Were Donald Trump’s 2005 Taxes News?

A Report from Clickbait Nation

It seems that those who chose to watch Maddow may have felt the same way. As it turned out, Rachel had two 1040 summary pages from Trump's 2005 return, via journalist David Cay Johnston of DCreport.org, who had received them anonymously (morning speculation is that they were deliberately leaked by the ...
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Trump’s Call to Order

The Politics of Resentment

Throughout the twentieth-century other thinkers drew on Popper’s intuition to stress a common opposition to the universalistic aspirations of modernity: fundamental political, moral, and cultural concepts functioned to denigrate and marginalize others who didn’t measure up to its criteria of rationality. This aspirational rationality was responsible not only for twentieth-century ...
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Democrats, Republicans and the Explosive Politics of Health Insurance by Theda Skocpol

Part II Q&A Session

For the Part I please visit: https://publicseminar.org/2017/02/democrats-republicans-and-the-explosive-politics-of-health-insurance/#.WLWpRhIrK2w The current debate on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act has once again highlighted healthcare as a divisive issue at the national level. In this climate, healthcare is framed in a variety of ways that escape easy categorization. This national debate cannot be addressed ...
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(Not) Coming to Terms with the Past

Race, Injustice and Social Policy in “Postracial” America

A week later, on March 6th, Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), waded into similarly troubled waters when he claimed -- in an address to HUD employees -- “That’s what America is about. A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in ...
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Donald Tusk’s Polish Stalker

Jacek Saryusz-Wolski Challenging Tusk for President of European Council

But then, on February 27, the Financial Times reported that the Polish government was sounding out the possibility of presenting an alternative candidate, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, an MEP from Civic Platform, the party Tusk founded. In the European Parliament, Saryusz-Wolski is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP), which he served as Vice ...
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A Call for Action

Post-Election Activism in the U.S.

I am among such scholars. Throughout my career I have specialized in the study of fascism and antifascism. Whether one believes that the belligerent right-wing nationalism we are witnessing today conforms to the definition of fascism or not, the work that I have done seems particularly relevant to understanding the ...
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