Gina Haspel Archives - Public Seminar

Feature

The Spy who Psychoanalyzed Me

Psychology’s long and shameful history with torture

May 28, 2018 • by Tristan Chirico

After a highly controversial confirmation process, Gina Haspel is now director of the CIA. At the heart of the controversy surrounding her nomination were Haspel's alleged ties to the systematic torture of terrorism suspects conducted at so-called “black sites” during the Bush Era -- one of which Haspel oversaw in ...

The Banality of Evil and the Death of the Author

Thoughts on social interaction, and questions of individual recognition and responsibility

May 18, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I hope we can agree: we are not alone, and even when we are alone, we are not alone. We humans are what we are as we interact with each other: no interaction, no person; no interaction, no politics; no interaction, no art, science and love; no sex and no ...

“Bloody Gina,” the CIA, and the Senate

Why Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing was a democratic farce

May 15, 2018 • by Jeremy Varon

Growing up near Washington, D.C., I developed a child’s awe at the city’s great temples of democracy: its monuments to Lincoln and Jefferson; the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence is housed; the Capitol Rotunda; and even the modern, workaday offices of Congress where the people’s business is done. ...