9/10,11, and 12

The world was bigger then. Our two oceans provided us with the same illusion of protection our grandparents enjoyed

It's not just that I am a man who was born and raised in New York City. It's not just that my family goes back generations here: my dad and his two brothers were cops who patrolled its streets, and my mom worked on the 97th floor of Tower One. ...
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9/10,11, and 12

How Banning Abortion Will Transform America

The Texas ruling takes us one step closer to the state surveillance of Ceaușescu’s Romania

_____ Across the United States, Republican-controlled legislatures are outlawing abortion, with the hope of bringing the issue before a sympathetic Supreme Court. If they succeed in revoking women's reproductive rights, the U.S. will quickly become a different society—one resembling Communist-era Romania.  “It was a horrible time,” recounts one Romanian gynecologist, referring to the period ...
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How Banning Abortion Will Transform America

Backing Trump When He Is Out of Office Is…Expensive

As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol begins its work, the Department of Justice invites Republican politicians who supported the insurrection to defend themselves

The ripples of the explosive Tuesday testimony that four police officers gave before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol continue to spread. Committee members are meeting this week to decide how they will proceed. Congress goes on recess during August, but ...
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Backing Trump When He Is Out of Office Is…Expensive

How Charlie Brown Remained A “Good Man”

Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz went to great lengths to avoid political controversy. But as culture became more political, he navigated that challenge with skill and grace

_____ Charlie Brown had a hard time choosing sides. This was always part of the humor of his character. It was also one of the many things he hated about himself. On New Year’s Eve 1965 Charlie Brown, the star of cartoonist Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts, decided to change: he would be decisive, clear-cut, ...
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How Charlie Brown Remained A “Good Man”

20 Years of U.S. Occupation Was Brutal in Afghanistan—And So Will Be the Exit

Alongside the relief of ending the longest war in modern American history, we need to acknowledge the horrors of what we are leaving behind in Afghanistan

_____ When a reporter in early July asked Joe Biden a question about the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. president sniped back, saying, “I want to talk about happy things, man.” Biden revealed, perhaps unintentionally, that the situation in Afghanistan is anything but a happy topic. It might have been one ...
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20 Years of U.S. Occupation Was Brutal in Afghanistan—And So Will Be the Exit

On the Sociology of “Doing as If”

For Jeffrey Goldfarb

_____ I taught with Jeff Goldfarb for many years, mostly at the New School, but also at  Sciences Po, in Paris.  Sometimes, as part of a curriculum, and some times for the mere pleasure of debating. It was a pleasure we pursued almost uninterruptedly for more than I0 years, inviting ourselves to each ...
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On the Sociology of “Doing as If”

What Jeff Goldfarb Understood

_____ In the summer of 2013, I was about to start my graduate degree at The New School for Social Research. A month before I sat in Jeff Goldfarb’s contemporary sociology class, I was in Istanbul—protesting, resisting, and critically thinking with many others about our collective actions, media activism, and the ...
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What Jeff Goldfarb Understood

Learning to Think About Memory and Politics

Jeff Goldfarb navigated–and worked through–the polar opposites that can define academic and political life

_____ Jeff Goldfarb has been my teacher, colleague, and friend: our conversations about culture, politics, democracy, and activism—through reading and writing, in public and private forums—have continued since I began as a student in the Department of Sociology at the NSSR. From and with Jeff, and by studying sites within which democracy ...
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Learning to Think About Memory and Politics

A Connection That Never Expired

In 1974, Jeffrey Goldfarb went to Poland to do research about democracy—and put down lasting roots

Claire Potter: Elzbieta, let's begin with when you met Jeff Goldfarb.  Elzbieta Matynia: Jeff and Naomi Goldfarb came to Poland in 1973—Jeff was on an IREX fellowship, and Naomi attended some studio classes at the Academy of Arts. I had just begun my graduate studies. But we were both interested in the same ...
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A Connection That Never Expired

Confederate Monuments Are Not History

Like the contemporary war on “critical race theory,” these statues of the defeated prop up white supremacy in the name of a false past

_____ It seemed as though monuments were suddenly in the news during Donald Trump’s presidency, but they have always been controversial. Monuments to the Confederacy were contested by African American citizens as soon as they appeared after 1865. Black citizens understood these monuments for what they were: a rallying point for ...
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Confederate Monuments Are Not History

The Decline of Colombia’s Centaur State

By launching a general strike, a broad coalition of Colombians has invited state violence—but united to demonstrate what real democracy looks like

_____ On April 28, 2021, thousands of Colombians took to the streets to protest a highly ill-timed and unpopular tax reform. The law implemented a 19 percent tax on goods and services, echoing previous tax, labor, and pension reforms of 2019 which had similarly fueled a general strike against austerity and ...
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The Decline of Colombia’s Centaur State

Israel on the Brink

We just had a warning, a taste of what the future looks like short of post-ethnic politics in our post-two-state era

_____ Arvid Jurjaks: I want to start at the current political situation in Israel with Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett being asked to form a government. How much chance do they have to succeed on this, you think? Omri Boehm: I think it's pretty clear that Yair Lapid has no chance, because  Bennett, ...
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Israel on the Brink