What Hannah Arendt Really Wants

Reclaiming Space for the Vita Activa

There is an obvious reason why people in the U.S. have started to read George Orwell, Sinclair Lewis, Vaclav Havel, and Hannah Arendt again.[1] I must admit I share their concern: From the very first actions of the Trump administration, it became clear that the country has taken an authoritarian ...
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What Hannah Arendt Really Wants

Politics of the Internet

A Spring 2017 OOPS Course

The Internet is indeed a reflection of our times. Yet, a product of its social and political context, the Internet was invented in 1970s for the purpose of constructing an intelligence network that would resist a possible nuclear attack. Although initiated by the Military-Academic-Industrial complex of the era, the Internet ...
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Politics of the Internet

Three Philosophical Lives

Hubert L. Dreyfus, Benjamin R. Barber, Robert Pirsig

(1) Hubert L. Dreyfus, who passed away on Friday April 21, was a figure of quiet importance in the discipline of philosophy. He belonged to the philosophical cohort that includes Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Jürgen Habermas, and Richard Bernstein, but unlike the aforementioned Dreyfus was not widely known outside ...
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Three Philosophical Lives

The New School as a Sanctuary Campus

Taking a stance and making our campuses accessible, safe, and truly open

Since the election of Donald Trump, like hundreds of universities across the country, The New School has been mobilized. Following the Executive Orders on Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements and Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States in January of 2017, faculty, students and staff ...
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The New School as a Sanctuary Campus

Interview with Dr. Kris Manjapra

On racial, gendered, colonial capitalism (the only kind of capitalism)

Cooper: I’d like to begin first by asking you to elaborate just a little bit more on your notion of Foucault and his thesis about repression and how it applies in your own work. Manjapra: Foucault was observing that in the 19th century there was a moment of discussion and talk ...
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Interview with Dr. Kris Manjapra

Reading Black Reconstruction Today

My first encounter with W.E.B. Du Bois' Black Reconstruction in the America came over the same weekend that the US Department of Education, newly under the leadership of Betsy DeVos, tweeted: "Education must not simply teach - it must teach life. -- W.E.B. DeBois". The Education Department's blithe attempt to participate ...
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Reading Black Reconstruction Today

Slavery, Race, Capitalism

A collaborative course and syllabus from Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies

A course offering from the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies, co-designed and co-taught by Julia Ott, Mia White, Alana Lentin, Kris Manjapra, Fred Cooper, Janet Roitman, Darrick Hamilton, Terry Williams, Nathan Connolly, Shirley Thompson, Ujju Aggarwal, Natasha Iskander, and Nicholas Fiori. Overview Historians' recent investigations of the centrality of racialized chattel ...
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Slavery, Race, Capitalism

Do You Love to Dance? Together?

Popping the Social Media Filter Bubble

Let me guess -- the standard videos in your morning Facebook feed are: LOL cats; Police shootings in Chicago; A Trump press conference; TGIF Beyoncé music video. Recently, my feed contained was filled with only one video. All That We Share, a three-minute film highlighting all of the features that humans ...
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Do You Love to Dance? Together?

White Supremacy, Elitism, and the Future of Liberal Education

A response to Tim Lacy’s ‘Great Books Socialism’

In his extended essay, “Great Books Socialism?,” recently published on Public Seminar, Tim Lacy makes a compelling case for adapting the practice -- suggested by Molly Worthen in an Op-ed for the New York Times -- of deploying the great books as ideological tools established by conservative foundations and institutes ...
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White Supremacy, Elitism, and the Future of Liberal Education

Decolonizing Epistemologies: Part 2

Race Critical and Decolonial Sociology

This blog post is republished with the permission of the author, Alana Lentin, from her blog, alanalentin.net. This discussion is a continuation of the discussion begun in the last post, Decolonizing Epistemologies: part 1. Decolonial approach The decolonial approach to the discussion of the relationship between modernity and coloniality and how this continues ...
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Decolonizing Epistemologies: Part 2

Decolonizing Epistemologies: Part 1

Race Critical and Decolonial Sociology

This blog post is republished with the permission of the author, Alana Lentin, from her blog, alanalentin.net . What are the possibilities for social and political critique opened up by the decolonial approach? I shall examine the interconnections between postcolonial theory and the Decolonial, uncovering the trajectory that began with Indian subaltern studies ...
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Decolonizing Epistemologies: Part 1

Twitter as the Medium and the Message

Or Twitter as The Public

“Describe yourself in a sentence.” Teachers commonly use this phrase as an invitation to their students, presumably to get to know them better. All your thoughts, ideas, motivations, and aspirations, all condensed into one sentence. That is a lot of editing -- your gist can only contain the ‘best’ or ...
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Twitter as the Medium and the Message