Essays Archive - Page 10 of 131

Being a Bad Feminist

I can’t stop shaving—and it makes me feel like a fraud

January 23, 2023 • by Amalie Thieden

Here’s my confession: for years I’ve felt ashamed. Ashamed of spending more money than I’ll ever want to count on hair removal products, and ashamed of all the times I haven’t worn what I wanted to because I didn't have the time or energy to shave. I was ashamed of ...

Economy

Why We Should Worry about Inequality

And why we should take seriously Plato and John Stuart Mill

January 11, 2023 • by David Lay Williams

Plato and Mill respectively propose a variety of measures to achieve their desired degree of economic equality (not precise equality in either case), though both agree (1) that inheritance taxes should play a significant role, and (2) that this equality should be achieved incrementally, rather than all at once, to ...

Finance

Austerity, Then and Now

An excerpt from The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism

January 9, 2023 • by Clara Mattei

Part of what makes austerity so effective as a set of policies is that it packages itself in the language of honest, hardscrabble economics. Vague sentiments such as “hard work” and “thrift” are hardly novel; they have been extolled by economists since the days of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and ...

Multi-Verse

Multi-Verse Episode 7: William Archila on the Flicker of Thought

“Northern Triangle Dissected” and the psychological journeys of Central American minors seeking asylum

December 14, 2022 • by Evangeline Riddiford Graham

In Episode 7 of Multi-Verse, poet William Archila reads and discusses his poem “Northern Triangle Dissected” with host Evangeline Graham, in a conversation about the migration of unaccompanied minors in the wake of the Central American Crisis, and the use of metaphor to convey psychology....

Podcast

Verdi, Dante, and Dahlia Lithwick

December 12, 2022 • by Claire Potter

A conversation with Slate's Supreme Court reporter about her new book, "Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America"...

Announcements

Until We Meet Again

Public Seminar suspends publication until the conclusion of the part-time faculty strike at The New School

November 16, 2022 • by James Miller and Claire Potter

Public Seminar has suspended publication as of November 16, 2022, until The New School and the part-time faculty union have arrived at a new contract, allowing our part-time colleagues to return to work. We will not be accepting pitches, or answering queries, until further notice....

Podcast

Inflation, the Labor Market, and Inequality: Two Interviews

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 16

November 10, 2022 • by Pete Sinnott and Luke Mergner

This week a double episode, first a discussion about inflation and the labor market with Brian Callaci, chief economist at the Open Market Institute. Then an interview with political scientist David Lay Williams about inequality today and its place in the history of western political thought....

Inflation, the Labor Market, and Inequality: Two Interviews

Migration

Why the U.S. Needs Migrants

Migrant workers have an important role in the economy

November 9, 2022 • by Steve Max

Contrary to what the Republicans would have us believe, foreign-born workers, nearly half of whom are Spanish speaking, participate in the workforce at a higher rate than their native-born counterparts: 65 percent compared to 61 percent of the native-born. ...

Migration

The Dilemma of a Fragmented Self

Mass migrations, language, and the future of identity

November 9, 2022 • by Ken Hu

How can language create such a convoluted way of experiencing the everyday world? We can explore this phenomenon with two linked concepts: the speech act and the discourse community. ...

The Arts

Docking the Long Tail of Culture

How mass culture has scored a decisive victory in the age of the Internet

November 9, 2022 • by W. David Marx

In the past, the difficulty of acquiring long-tail content suggested that a person had many underlying status assets, such as intelligence, curiosity, and deep knowledge. When anyone can find anything obscure on the Internet within minutes, acquisition alone reveals no virtues or skills....

Capitalism

The Rat Race of Prestige and Boredom

W. David Marx on how status affects human behavior

November 9, 2022 • by Alla Anatsko and W. David Marx

The whole idea of cultural capital is knowing what objects to buy, how to arrange them, how to behave—all of these things go together. Just because you can purchase an object does not mean you can get into the group....

Interviews

The Moment I Knew I Could Not Be a Priest

John D’Emilio discusses his new memoir, Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood

November 8, 2022 • by John D’Emilio and Claire Potter

My three best friends in high school all went into the Jesuits after graduation. When I say they are my three best friends, the four of us ate at the same table every day for three years at school. So I had the sense that I wanted to apply to ...

Essays

Being a Bad Feminist

I can’t stop shaving—and it makes me feel like a fraud

Why We Should Worry about Inequality

And why we should take seriously Plato and John Stuart Mill

Austerity, Then and Now

An excerpt from The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism

Multi-Verse Episode 7: William Archila on the Flicker of Thought

“Northern Triangle Dissected” and the psychological journeys of Central American minors seeking asylum

Verdi, Dante, and Dahlia Lithwick

Until We Meet Again

Public Seminar suspends publication until the conclusion of the part-time faculty strike at The New School

Inflation, the Labor Market, and Inequality: Two Interviews

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 16

The Dilemma of a Fragmented Self

Mass migrations, language, and the future of identity

Docking the Long Tail of Culture

How mass culture has scored a decisive victory in the age of the Internet

The Moment I Knew I Could Not Be a Priest

John D’Emilio discusses his new memoir, Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood

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