From the Editors Archives - Page 20 of 171

From the Editors

The App That Ate the Iowa Caucuses

As we head into the New Hampshire primary, politics – and political media – need a reboot

February 4, 2020 • by Claire Potter

One thing that was clear is that our system for broadcasting elections needs overhauling. Election night shows are over-reliant on provided endless amounts of trivial information, in the name of context, that actually distracts audiences from taking in, or thinking about, the bigger picture. In fact, the MSNBC team seemed desperate to persuade us ...

From the Editors

49 People, 33 Doors

Partisans are slogging through the snow in Iowa and New Hampshire

January 29, 2020 • by Claire Potter

The first primary is, of course, in the great state of Iowa, a place our volunteer has visited exactly once, to give a talk at a university, and had a lovely time. This week, Iowa is being bombarded with volunteers, journalists, camera crews, and a great many surrogates for the Senators who are ...

From the Editors

Impeached Forever

As of this week, the United States is still a country of laws

January 22, 2020 • by Claire Potter

As we go to press this week, all 50 United States Senators have spent the entire day in the same room together, something that almost never happens. In fact during lulls when they are not voting on anything, Senators can go for days or weeks without fully convening; Senate speeches ...

From the Editors

#Megxit

Is it a coincidence that a pair of Windsors are crossing the pond as the effort to topple King Donald of Trump intensifies?

January 15, 2020 • by Claire Potter

By now everyone knows that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (aka, Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle) have announced that they are leaving “the Firm,” and who is surprised? Everyone agrees that it was a beautiful wedding, but the fairy tale ending, in which the House of Windsor merged seamlessly ...

From the Editors

State of Emergency

As Donald Trump wags the dog, we try to remember where and how all this violence started

January 8, 2020 • by Claire Potter

There are days when it seems like we have been living in a state of emergency since September 11, 2011. Maybe it started even before that: on August 20, 1998, President William Jefferson Clinton, in the middle of an investigation into his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, initiated something ...

From the Editors

The Things We Promise

Happy New Year from Public Seminar

January 1, 2020 • by Claire Potter

Public Seminar looks different than it did in 2016, a new platform and publishing style that allows us to create a new reading experience for you. For New Year’s, we are launching a new kind of feature: three essays that take on a controversial article and slow the conversation down to a pace that ...

From the Editors

Our Gift for You

Greetings of the season from all of us to all of you

December 25, 2019 • by Claire Potter

But here’s a real gift for you, from real people: this week’s issue of Public Seminar which, according to our tradition, is just as secular – and just as free -- as it is the rest of the year. This week we begin with a recap of impeachment doings by senior editor Jeffrey Isaac ...

From the Editors

We Are Getting Texts from Donald Trump

And we fantasize about writing back

December 18, 2019 • by Claire Potter

We admit that we have neglected the President, and we will continue to do so – despite Melania's BEAUTIFUL photos. But if we were to text the President back, it would be with the good news that Public Seminar has, once again, curated a weekly issue that encourages him to ...

From the Editors

Looking Uptown

Public Seminar reports from the center of the world

December 11, 2019 • by Claire Potter

In Democracy, senior editor Maria Bucur offers us a two-part reflection on Romania where, she argues, the 2019 presidential elections signal a populism in retreat. In her second essay, however, Bucur points to an underlying corruption that has become harder to fight since the Trump administration, as part of the campaign against Democratic presidential candidate ...

From the Editors

If It’s Wednesday….

It must be Public Seminar

December 4, 2019 • by Claire Potter

It’s exhausting, isn’t it? But here comes Public Seminar, which is free (although donations are welcome -- phone lines are open!) and it always will be free. And have we got great issue for you this week. We are starting off another cluster on Democracy with a report from Laszlo Bruszt on the ...

From the Editors

Hello, Pilgrim

A Public Seminar Thanksgiving

November 27, 2019 • by Claire Potter

It has been 398 years since the first Thanksgiving in the New World: held in October, it occurred after the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony completed their harvest. Fifty-three English people and 90 Wampanoags indigenous to the region partied for three days. Unlike other English colonies in Virginia, where ...

Announcements

The Pros and Cons of U.S. Universities Operating Campuses in Countries with Authoritarian Regimes

A Center for Public Scholarship Public Voices event

November 24, 2019 • by Arien Mack

What are the goals these offshore US campuses and centers in such countries aim to achieve? Can they be achieved? Must the curricula in the courses taught be altered to comply with the limits on free inquiry either implicitly or explicitly imposed? If US students attend these campuses ,are they free to travel and talk ...