Jeffrey C. Goldfarb Archives

Democracy

Resisting Cynicism and Neototalitarianism

The ideological dogmatism of left and right might dissipate within a radical center that is open and inclusive

May 28, 2026 • by Siobhan Kattago

As part of an ongoing symposium on Jeffrey Goldfarb’s latest book on the retreat of democracy, Gray Is Beautiful: Confronting the Retreat of Democracy from the Radical Center, Siobhan Kattago opens up another window on the concept of the radical center, noting that while the term “radical center” may sound like a ...

Resisting Cynicism and Neototalitarianism

Democracy

Thoughts on “the Radical Center” and the Defense of Democracy

On the limits of the limits of either/or thinking

May 28, 2026 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

As part of an ongoing symposium on Jeffrey Goldfarb’s latest book on the retreat of democracy, Gray Is Beautiful: Confronting the Retreat of Democracy from the Radical Center, Jeffrey C. Isaac suggests that this “paradoxical idea” (paradoxical, for how can “radicalism” be “centrist?”) is best defended by Goldfarb himself but that ...

Democracy

Understanding the Retreat of Democracy With Jeff Goldfarb’s Gray Is Beautiful

On creating a free space of exploration

May 27, 2026 • by Irit Dekel

As part of an ongoing symposium on Jeffrey Goldfarb’s latest book on the retreat of democracy, series editor Irit Dekel reflects on how the book’s subtitle, Confronting the Retreat of Democracy From the Radical Center, poses the potent tensions that are crucial for attempting to solve the problems at hand, suggesting that ...

Understanding the Retreat of Democracy With Jeff Goldfarb’s Gray Is Beautiful

The New School

Remembering Michael E. Gellert

Not just a benefactor but a friend, this émigré from Central European knew that the act of listening was the future of democracy

August 23, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

_____ One of the great honors of my life was to be named the Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology in May of 1999. At the time, I was very pleased because it recognized the value of my scholarship, teaching and service to the New School and the broader public. But ...

Uncategorized

Retiring Does Not Mean Throwing in the Towel

Closing one chapter on work allows so much else to begin

August 11, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

_____ I’m out of there! I’ve stepped down as a tenured professor at The New School for Social Research. I came up through the ranks, advancing from Assistant Professor to Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology. Along the way, there were stints as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Liberal ...

Retiring Does Not Mean Throwing in the Towel

Democracy

On the Sociology of “Doing as If”

For Jeffrey Goldfarb

July 8, 2021 • by Daniel Dayan

_____ I taught with Jeff Goldfarb for many years, mostly at the New School, but also at Sciences Po, in Paris. Sometimes, as part of a curriculum, and some times for the mere pleasure of debating. It was a pleasure we pursued almost uninterruptedly for more than I0 years, inviting ourselves to each ...

Democracy

What Jeff Goldfarb Understood

July 7, 2021 • by Zeyno Ustun

_____ In the summer of 2013, I was about to start my graduate degree at The New School for Social Research. A month before I sat in Jeff Goldfarb’s contemporary sociology class, I was in Istanbul—protesting, resisting, and critically thinking with many others about our collective actions, media activism, and the ...

Democracy

Learning to Think About Memory and Politics

Jeff Goldfarb navigated–and worked through–the polar opposites that can define academic and political life

July 7, 2021 • by Irit Dekel

_____ Jeff Goldfarb has been my teacher, colleague, and friend: our conversations about culture, politics, democracy, and activism—through reading and writing, in public and private forums—have continued since I began as a student in the Department of Sociology at the NSSR. From and with Jeff, and by studying sites within which democracy ...

Learning to Think About Memory and Politics

Democracy

A Connection That Never Expired

In 1974, Jeffrey Goldfarb went to Poland to do research about democracy—and put down lasting roots

July 7, 2021 • by Elzbieta Matynia and Claire Potter

Claire Potter: Elzbieta, let's begin with when you met Jeff Goldfarb. Elzbieta Matynia: Jeff and Naomi Goldfarb came to Poland in 1973—Jeff was on an IREX fellowship, and Naomi attended some studio classes at the Academy of Arts. I had just begun my graduate studies. But we were both interested in the same ...

A Scholar for Our Times

Friendship and the substance of hope

July 7, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

_____ “’two going together’ are better able both to think and to act.” —Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter I, on friendship. I was just starting to wind down my tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives on Politics when I had my first actual conversation with Jeff Goldfarb. I had just published a lead ...

Migration

‘The Uses and Disadvantages of Historical Comparisons for Life’

Tyrone Chambers, Krzysztof Czyżewski, Vera Grant, Jeffrey Goldfarb, Dan Shore, Marci Shore

October 19, 2020 • by Marci Shore, Krzysztof Czyżewski, Vera I. Grant, Dan H. Shore, Tyrone Chambers, II and Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Edited and abridged by Marci Shore KRZYSZTOF CZYZEWSKI: I’m here in Krasnogruda. It means at the border between Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus, in the northeastern corner of Poland. In my Borderland Centre, which, with my friends, I established 30 years ago, thinking of being more engaged in art, for solidarity with ...

‘The Uses and Disadvantages of Historical Comparisons for Life’

Announcements

Me, the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy

An online book talk sponsored by the Democracy Seminar on Friday, October 16, 11:00-1:00 EST

October 12, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb and Elzbieta Matynia

Populism erodes democracy in Europe, North America, and South America. It is a complex phenomenon that has mobilized many philosophers and political thinkers for some time now. For the most part, and not without reason, thinkers see populism as more than a threat to democracy: they see it as the ...