James E. Miller Archives - Public Seminar

Capitalism

Has Conservatism Outlived Its Usefulness?

A short note on a hoary concept

June 9, 2026 • by James Miller

Matt Walsh: The definition of conservatism … It has no definition, I think. We talk about the words that don’t mean anything anymore, words that used to be useful and maybe used to mean something and they just don’t anymore because of how they’ve been used and abused and overused. ...

Has Conservatism Outlived Its Usefulness?

Philosophy

Revolutionary Ideals and the Temptations of Tyranny

A public conversation about philosophy, politics, and the fateful tropism of sincere political idealists of all types

January 29, 2026 • by Dan Edelstein, Gwenda-lin Grewal, James Miller and James Romm

The following conversation was first presented as a public panel on October 9, 2025, as part of the Henry H. Arnhold Forum on Global Challenges at the New School for Social Research. James Miller: As Dan Edelstein has shown in his important new book, The Revolution to Come, for most of ...

Revolutionary Ideals and the Temptations of Tyranny

Democracy

The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

Or, why should ordinary citizens trust unelected experts anymore?

May 8, 2025 • by Mark Frazier, James Miller, Kim Lane Scheppele and Julia Sonnevend

Good evening, my name is Jim Miller. I am a professor of politics and liberal studies at the New School for Social Research, and I have organized, and will be moderating tonight’s panel with the ungainly title, on bureaucracy and its discontents. To discuss the tensions created by professing democracy as ...

The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

Democracy

The Dictatorship of the Tech Bros—or, What Is to Be Done?

A conversation about DOGE and Trump and Musk’s attempt to smash the state

February 7, 2025 • by Forrest Deacon and James Miller

Editor’s note: In December 2024, Forrest Deacon, a Humanities lecturer at Villanova University who is also completing a dissertation in politics at the New School for Social Research, approached Public Seminar, offering to write a piece about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). At the time, this seemed like a ...

The Dictatorship of the Tech Bros—or, What Is to Be Done?

Music

The Mysteries of Taylor Swift

A symposium on a theologico-political phenomenon

February 27, 2024 • by Jack Condie, Simon Critchley, Gwenda-lin Grewal and James Miller

In this Taylor Swift symposium, New School philosophers and critical theorists dissect the mysteries of the pop star....

Democracy

People Power?

The phrase “liberal democracy” has degenerated into an ideological cliché

April 12, 2023 • by John Keane

Democracy is not an all-knowing and arrogant Ideology. It is its antidote. ...

Philosophy

When I Was One-Dimensional

How Herbert Marcuse’s text changed my life

July 20, 2022 • by James Miller

"For their sincere reception," Cavell concludes, some life-altering texts require "the shock of conversion." Reading Marcuse, I had felt that shock, with pleasure. Few experiences are quite as rapturous as the conviction that one has embarked on a splendid new life with the firmest of good convictions: as Plato long ...

Education

Between Ideals and Realities

An overview of the General Seminar on the legacies of the University in Exile

March 5, 2014 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Last Wednesday, on February 26th, there was a special meeting of The New School for Social Research’s General Seminar, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the University in Exile. Three faculty members and three graduate students were asked to address a foundational question: “What is the meaning of The University in ...

Education

Reimagining Our Institution

March 5, 2014 • by William Somerville

This is the prepared text of a presentation to the General Seminar commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the University in Exile. Dr. Wagner-Pacifici draws our attention to two states of event: event as particle, and as wave. Event as particle may feel more conceptually intuitive: an event has a “shape” and ...

Education

The Mission and Structure of NSSR

March 5, 2014 • by Anthony Bonen

This is the prepared text of a presentation to the General Seminar commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the University in Exile. The cleavage between the stated mission of NSSR and its structure is gaping. The focus of social research is necessarily on deep, long-term and perennial concepts and challenges. The parsing ...

Education

Refuge and Exile: Illuminating an Academic Contradiction

March 5, 2014 • by Marianne Le Nabat

This is the prepared text of a presentation to the General Seminar commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the University in Exile. I would like to begin my remarks by saying that my own experience at the NSSR has been extremely positive on an intellectual level. When I arrived to the philosophy ...