From the Editors Archives - Page 81 of 171

Feature

All the News That’s Fit to Print?

Reporting on the possible hegemony of the paranoid style of American politics

June 15, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The New York Times on May 29th, the front page headline: “Trump Endorses Shadowy Plots, Eroding Trust,” followed by a subtitle: “Theories from Fringes,” with a further subtitle: “Agencies Undermined by Claims of Deep-State and Spygate.” The article by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Maggie Haberman is smart and informative, packed with ...

Feature

This is Your America

Why Frederick Douglass Still Matters

June 15, 2018 • by Neil Roberts

I’m worried. Very worried. But don’t mistake my worrying for pessimism or, worse, nihilism. Rather, I worry because I see a nation, with its connection to a wider world, unraveling right in front of us. Daily attempts to shatter what constitutes citizenship contribute to this entropy. There’s no immediate solution ...

Feature

The History of Virtualizing Touch

From electricity to vibration, haptic technology is changing the relationship between touch and media

June 14, 2018 • by Allie Mularoni

From corrective lenses to virtual simulation, humans have long pursued the mediation of the senses in an effort to maximize their visual, auditory, and haptic capacities. The skin’s overlapping roles as both an organ capable of feeling its own right, as well as the structure responsible for holding all of ...

Feature

Rapture, by Iliazd: an excerpt

Translated by Thomas J. Kitson

June 14, 2018 • by Thomas J. Kitson

Public Seminar [PS]: How did you find yourself translating Rapture? Are you an admirer of Iliazd’s work? I guess I’m interested to know why you chose Iliazd, and Rapture in particular? Thomas J. Kitson [TJK]: When I was in college, I was attracted to the varieties of zaum (beyonsense) practiced by Russian Futurist poets, especially Velimir Khlebnikov and ...

Feature

When New York City Almost Failed

An Interview with Kim Phillips-Fein

June 13, 2018 • by Claire Potter and Kim Phillips-Fein

Earlier today, Public Seminar had the privilege of printing an excerpt of historian Kim Phillips-Fein’s recent book, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and The Rise of Austerity Politics. Originally published in 2017 by Metropolitan Books, it is now available in paperback from Picador. The book tells a complex story of ...

Feature

An Excerpt from Fear City

New York’s Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of Austerity Politics

June 13, 2018 • by Kim Phillips-Fein

Kim Phillips-Fein’s gripping narrative history, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of Austerity Politics, has received high praise from a wide ensemble of interested and prominent voices. For instance, James K. Galbraith says: “This revealing narrative of New York’s transformation from working-class social democracy to the glittering home ...

Feature

Making a Hostile Environment

Why the deportation of sex offenders matters

June 13, 2018 • by May Robson

The case of the “Asian grooming gang” from the Rochdale area of Greater Manchester is notorious. Over a two-year period, a group of nine men plied young girls with food, alcohol and drugs in order to sexually exploit them. The men were sentenced in May 2012, following a high-profile trial. ...

Education

Creativity

In /and /as the University

June 12, 2018 • by Nicholas Gamso

Every day brings more talk about the role of “creativity” in shaping urban futures. Most of such talk consists of paeans to personal and social development through art and design, technology, healthcare, and higher education. The University of the Arts in Philadelphia has even produced a graduate program to study creativity. ...

Feature

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Presidential Pardons, and Separated Families

Past Present Episode 134

June 12, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Natalia, Neil, and Niki debate the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, Donald Trump’s use of the presidential pardon, and the American tradition of separating families. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the baker who ...

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Presidential Pardons, and Separated Families

Feature

The Risks of Others

Imperial Nostalgia and Technologies of the Financial Imagination

June 12, 2018 • by Paul Robert Gilbert

In late 2014, the East India Company opened a new luxury tea and coffee store at the Royal Exchange in the City of London. Today’s East India Company does not, however, present itself as a tea shop named after the corporation whose officers Adam Smith charged with crafting a “perfectly destructive” system ...

Blue Monday

Thinking Politically in the Age of Trump

Introduction to #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One

June 11, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

A note from the author: This seems like a good time to follow up Jeffrey Goldfarb’s column of last week by posting the Introduction to my new Public Seminar book, #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One, which is available from Public Seminar as a free download here. "I merely took the energy it takes to pout, ...