Modigliani in Helsinki

Trump’s Kingdom of Misrule

It’s wonderful to enter such a solid building, with windows already lit up yellow against the winter dusk. To get to Modigliani you climb two flights of a wide stone staircase, holding onto the curved wood railings. Finland -- wood and stone. They’ve even made a little Paris café up on ...
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What is Politicized Psychoanalysis?

Trump Problems and the Neoliberal Normal in Psychoanalysis

When I ask my students to tell me what comes to mind when they hear the term neoliberalism they say: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; the outsourcing of labor to the global south; gender and sexual compliance in public assistance and welfare programs; the systematic oppression ...
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The Politics of Disclosure

Trump’s Dangerous Authoritarianism

Now this question has come out into the open, and certain facts have reached the light of day. Extensive investigative reporting by the Washington Post, New York Times, and other media outlets has shown that: Trump’s National Security Adviser, Mike Flynn, already known to have extensive ties to Putin, had numerous ...
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Blogs, Social Media, and the Future of the News

A Spring 2017 OOPS Course

This seminar is taught by Professor of History Claire Potter and sponsored by the Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism graduate program at the New School for Social Research. Week 1 | January 23 | Introduction Week 2 | January 30 | Getting the News Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow, "Social Media and Fake ...
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The Uses and Limits of Anti-Neoliberalism

There is a generalizing story circulating about the 2016 presidential election that is, I think, a clear example of how trust and suspicion not only can but must coexist whenever we reflect on events: call it “the anti-neoliberalism narrative.” The story goes like this: the establishments of both the Republican ...
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Regarding the “Institution-building, Governance and Compliance in Brazil: Politics, Policy and Business” Event

An Open Letter from members of the New School Community

The event remarkably embodies a one-sided set of views that is unrepresentative of and insensitive to the complexity of recent Brazilian politics. By presenting the Operação Lava Jato (Car Wash Operation) as paradigmatic of “institutional-building, governance and compliance” in Brazil the event implicitly embraces a narrative that contributed to the ...
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A Short Memory

The Women’s March in Hartford

I went up with my daughter and a few of her friends; we found easy parking, and walked over to the State Capitol Building. It's a classic dome building, and we met on the stairs, with statues of Puritan New England staring censoriously down on us. There was lots of ...
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The City Busy Fighting Hate

Atlanta Protests Trump

I’ll clear my calendar. Ignoring the stack of grading undone and the manuscript untouched, here  are the good parts. I’ve realized justice ain’t nothing but a family thing. My sister and I drove to D.C. together. She’s a Spanish professor and I’m a History professor. We had twelve hours to dissect ...
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No to Hate!

Rallying Against Global Trumpism in Berlin, Germany

On January 20, 2017, a practicing representative of rape culture took his place in the White House. With him came racism and sexism; came hatred for women*, lesbians and gays, trans*, inter*, and queers; came marginalization and debasement, insult and contempt. This can revive the age of men who beat and ...
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Turkey’s State of Emergency

An Open Letter

We are going through very, very hard times all over the world. The rate of catastrophe is perhaps higher in Turkey, due to the State of Emergency that accelerates the already present state of exception. This past year in Turkey, it dawned on me that I was witnessing what Hannah ...
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A Citizen’s Appeal to Barack Obama

Defending our democracy from authoritarianism

This can't wait. Every day brings us one day closer to authoritarianism, to war, to disaster. Unless you have closed your eyes and ears, you can see and hear this. You know this. What canon of "civility" and "respect for the constitutional transfer of authority" can require you now, as a ...
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​O​n the Edge of the Great Plains​

Marching for Equality in Omaha, Nebraska

Given these local realities, perhaps it is not a complete surprise, then, that more than 18,000 Omahans poured into downtown streets the night of January 21st to support the Women’s March on Washington.  (OK, it was a bit of a surprise, admittedly.)  Because our event took place in the evening, ...
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