Judgment and Decision Making

Syllabus for GPSY 6421

#1 01/26 Introduction ·       How We Know What Isn’t So – Chapters 1-2 ·       Thinking Fast and Slow – Chapter 1-3 #2 02/02 Heuristics and biases ·       Thinking Fast and Slow - Chapters 10-15 ·       Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (1996). Like goes with like: The role of representativeness in erroneous and pseudoscientific beliefs. Skeptical Inquirer, 20, 34-40 ·       Deri, S., ...
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The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere III

Truth, Politics and the Bifurcated Sphere of Publics

As I have been reporting on the Wroclaw seminar’s progress, in the shadow of the collapse of democracy in Poland, I have been dumbfounded by events in the U.S. since I got back from Poland. President Trump has threatened nuclear war with North Korea, disregarding all expert opinion about the appropriate ...
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The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere III

The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere II

The Sphere of Publics and its Bifurcation

As our seminar on authoritarianism and public life progressed, we focused on the work of Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, and Joshua Meyrowitz to develop an understanding of mediated public life. Their sociology of media is a sociology of mediated interactions, rather than studies of the media, i.e. major newspapers, ...
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The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere II

The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere I

Reviewing the work of Jurgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt with an assist from Nancy Fraser

It’s been two weeks since my return from Wroclaw. I am getting over the shock of teaching about the rise of the new authoritarianism, as the Polish parliament, The Sejm, seemed to be hammering the final nails into the coffin of Polish democracy. It turned out to be a little ...
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The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere I

Teaching History in the Trump Era

Confessions of a Snowflake

One day in my small undergraduate historiography seminar a few years ago, one student said something really offensive to another student. I can’t really repeat the offending sentence, but it involved a racist aspersion toward a student of color and the offender invoked the name of then-candidate Trump as he ...
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Teaching History in the Trump Era

Scandals in Higher Education

Race, Class and the Struggle Over Diminishing Resources

As those of us who are college and university teachers gear up for the fall semester, our profession is briefly back in the news with a high focus on the heartbreak of college admissions. Let's start with genuine heartbreak. Last Saturday, we learned that UC Irvine had rescinded acceptances for almost 500 ...
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Scandals in Higher Education

Media, the New Authoritarianism, and Its Alternatives Update

Teaching in Wroclaw, as liberal democracy is collapsing in Poland and beyond

I am exhausted. Conducting the seminar “Media, Publics and the New Authoritarianism” at this time, and in Poland, was intense, exciting, illuminating, and depressing. Coping with a combination of illumination and despair, I did not have the time or the constitution to properly digest what we were exploring together, and ...
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Media, the New Authoritarianism, and Its Alternatives Update

The Clash of Civilizations

From Myth to Reality?

Recently, an Egyptian friend of mine posted on Facebook that an Egyptian friend of his tried to apply for an internship in France. The reply he got was shockingly disappointing and not expected at all. Without mentioning the company’s name, it said: “Thanks for your interest in an internship… I ...
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The Clash of Civilizations

Don’t Roll Back Title IX Enforcement

The Past and Future of Campus Sexual Assault Policy

The recent Title IX Listening Sessions of July 13 2017 sponsored by U. S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have prompted this week’s forum at Public Seminar. As part of the process, Secretary DeVos also hosted men’s rights activists who champion the cause of individuals claiming to be falsely ...
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Don’t Roll Back Title IX Enforcement