Essays Archive - Page 33 of 131

The Power of Empty Terms

The increasingly militant culture wars divide the public into two irreconcilable camps

November 2, 2021 • by Zora Hesová

Unlike a historical dispute or ideological debate, the “politics of morality” is primarily about power, a concept with American origins, now playing out in Europe. But what lies even further behind central Europe’s growing disagreement over same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and immigration? The Czech Republic has recently caught up with the ...

Economy

Five Years of Silence

How states and corporations use public records exemptions to cover up deal details

November 1, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

The Tennessee legislature last week approved a massive new deal for a Ford electric vehicle and battery plant at a site about 50 miles east of Memphis. The legislation creates a “megasite” authority that will dole out $884 million in state funds: $500 million in corporate handouts to Ford and ...

Technology

Don’t Kill Facebook: Reform It

November 1, 2021 • by Claire Potter

In 2018, as we were all still digesting how disinformation campaigns upended the 2016 election, technologist and internet critic Jaron Lanier published a manifesto. Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (Henry Holt) introduced readers to the methods by which platforms like Facebook and Twitter not only capture and ...

Politics

France Unleashes its Racist Demons

How a Jewish writer of Algerian-Berber descent has become the nation’s most dangerous man

October 29, 2021 • by Mitchell Abidor and Miguel Lago

The most dangerous man in France today is Éric Zemmour. A best-selling author and far-right polemicist, Zemmour seems to be an increasingly serious candidate to become the next President of France. Recent polls show him surpassing Marine Le Pen, the French far-right’s former leader—even though Zemmour has yet to formally ...

Capitalism

A World Beyond Capitalism

As workers contemplate the post-pandemic world, they know one thing: they need the big changes that mutual aid organizing has already imagined

October 27, 2021 • by Molly Ragan

It has been such a long time since American workers have pressured employers in such large numbers that some are calling this month “Striketober.” More than 10,000 John Deere United Automobile Workers (UAW) are on strike across the country after rejecting a tentative agreement that failed to adequately increase wages, ...

Capitalism

How (Some) Rich People Work Toward Redistribution

Sociologist Rachel Sherman talks to Guillermina Altomonte about “class traitors” challenging how we think about wealth

October 27, 2021 • by Guillermina Altomonte and Rachel Sherman

By all measures we live in an era defined by profound inequality. Most recently, while millions of Americans lost their jobs and became poorer during the pandemic, U.S. billionaires became $1.8 trillion richer. Rachel Sherman, Professor of Sociology at The New School, has long been interested in how the wealthy ...

How (Some) Rich People Work Toward Redistribution

Activism

A Chronicler of Human Complexity

Swedish magazine Ord&Bild asks three James Baldwin scholars why his writing is so resonant today

October 27, 2021 • by Douglas Field, Justin A. Joyce and Cora Kaplan

James Baldwin has become the most cited literary figure in the Black Lives Matter movement. But his writing was never political in the narrow sense. So what makes Baldwin relevant today? On complex answers to a simple question. Ord&Bild: The first question is straightforward: what makes the work of James Baldwin relevant ...

Politics

Moonwalking in Brasilia

How Jair Bolsonaro creates the illusion of moving forward while sliding back

October 26, 2021 • by Felippe Ramos

In Brazil's ongoing experiment with a far-right populist President, there is a gap between Jair Bolsonaro's performance in face-to-face rallies and on social networks and his minimal accomplishments as a politician constrained by a complex constitutional network of institutions and norms. Bolsonaro’s oral and written communication is filled with the hallmarks ...

Literature

We Are Watching Eliza Bright

A woman speaks out against workplace hostility and becomes the target of the violent male collective

October 25, 2021 • by A.E. Osworth

Excerpted from Chapter 13 Eliza needs to go to the bathroom. She needs to go to the private bathroom, so she can cry alone. In her hands, she clutches two things—her phone and a printout of the Career Tree she filled out with Preston just last Friday. We aren’t sure why ...

Literature

A Trippy, Tech-Noir Novel Exploring the Dark Recesses of the Internet and Male Rage

A.E. Osworth chats with Public Seminar about Osworth’s debut novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright

October 25, 2021 • by Vicky Oliver and A.E. Osworth

Published in 2021, A.E. Osworth’s debut novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright (Grand Central Publishing) was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel prize. Osworth’s novel started as a homework assignment during their Creative Writing M.F.A. at The New School. They recently had a conversation with Public Seminar intern ...

Philosophy

A Conversation with Slavoj Žižek

Why only a super-anthropocentrism and the reading of Hegel can save us

October 20, 2021 • by Leonardo Caffo and Slavoj Zizek

The following interview between Slavoj Žižek and Leonardo Caffo was recently published in the Italian magazine Sette—the weekly supplement of the daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera. It has been translated for Public Seminar by Thomas Winn. Slavoj Žižek is one of a few living philosophers whose ideas have been translated into ...

Gender

The Making of a Girl

New School Alum Melissa Febos uses memoir to understand the startling shame of becoming a woman in the eyes of others in this excerpt of her book Girlhood

October 20, 2021 • by Melissa Febos

"I got my period when I was ten, and I’d been reading Judy Blume books for a while so I knew it was coming," said Tanaïs. "And when it came, I wasn’t prepared for it anymore." A 2011 American Association of University Women (AAUW) school survey shows that early development ...

Essays

The Power of Empty Terms

The increasingly militant culture wars divide the public into two irreconcilable camps

Five Years of Silence

How states and corporations use public records exemptions to cover up deal details

France Unleashes its Racist Demons

How a Jewish writer of Algerian-Berber descent has become the nation’s most dangerous man

A World Beyond Capitalism

As workers contemplate the post-pandemic world, they know one thing: they need the big changes that mutual aid organizing has already imagined

How (Some) Rich People Work Toward Redistribution

Sociologist Rachel Sherman talks to Guillermina Altomonte about “class traitors” challenging how we think about wealth

A Chronicler of Human Complexity

Swedish magazine Ord&Bild asks three James Baldwin scholars why his writing is so resonant today

We Are Watching Eliza Bright

A woman speaks out against workplace hostility and becomes the target of the violent male collective

A Trippy, Tech-Noir Novel Exploring the Dark Recesses of the Internet and Male Rage

A.E. Osworth chats with Public Seminar about Osworth’s debut novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright

A Conversation with Slavoj Žižek

Why only a super-anthropocentrism and the reading of Hegel can save us

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