James Miller Archives - Public Seminar

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 ...