Skip to content
Public Seminar
Public Seminar
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Sections
    • The Arts
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Habitats
    • History
    • Migration
    • Philosophy
    • Politics
    • Race
    • Sex & Gender
    • Science & Technology
  • Podcasts
    • Unsettled
    • The Ostriches
    • Multi-Verse
    • Past Present
    • Exiles on 12th Street
    • Why Now?
    • Unproductive Labor
  • About
    • About
    • Submissions
    • Our Team
    • Donate
    • Issues Archive
  • Symposia
    • Rethinking Orozco
    • The Anti-Immigrant Election
    • The Mysteries of Taylor Swift
    • Rats: A Cautionary Tail
    • Teaching While Black
    • Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts
    • Constitutional Politics
    • Symposium on Love
    • The Left and the Crisis of Democracy

Merton (Robert)

Education

O.O.P.S. vs M.O.O.C.s: Midterm Report, Part 2

April 27, 2015 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The O.O.P.S. courses Rethinking Capitalism and Feminism, Capitalism and Social Transformation share a critical understanding: capitalism, as we are experiencing it, is undesirable and not the only political economy possible. They also both analyze how major social problems are directly linked to the present order of capitalism, from ...

Read More
Theory & Practice

The Social Condition, Modern Identity and Youth

April 19, 2015 • by Josephine Ott
When we turn the sociological focus away from social effects and social construction towards the social condition, it becomes clear that our everyday life is structured around thousands of decisions that are influenced by an underlying social condition: the self as subject and object, as a distinctive being on its ...
Read More
Uncategorized

Thoughts on Iddo Tavory’s Visit with the Social Condition Seminar

February 24, 2015 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
In the fourth week of our seminar, Iddo Tavory joined us. He did so in three different ways. In his writing: two of his articles (one co-authored with Nina Eliasoph) were the primary reading assignments – his, on morality, and theirs, on coordinating futures. In conversation: he also contributed to ...
Read More
Theory & Practice

Ambiguity, Ambivalence, and the Social Condition and Politics: Thoughts Following our Third Session

February 19, 2015 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
The assignment for the students last week was to read Donald Levine on modernity and ambiguity and Robert Merton on the sociology of ambivalence. These works anticipate the study of the social condition. Levine, by the way, was my dissertation supervisor, and I believe the sensibility that led him to ...
Read More
Uncategorized

Classical Sociology and the Social Condition

February 8, 2015 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
In last week’s meeting of the social condition class, we reviewed classical sociological studies, considering how they reveal or conceal the dilemmas and tensions built into the social fabric, how they illuminate or obfuscate the social condition. We looked closely at the closing pages of Max Weber’s Protestant Ethnic and ...
Read More
Uncategorized

Overhearing in the Public Sphere

October 1, 2013 • by Daniel Dayan

[codepeople-post-map]

...

Read More
Overhearing in the Public Sphere
Subscribe

Join our global intellectual commons

Free to subscribe. No spam. Delivered by Substack.

Most Popular
1
Philosophy in the Time of Techno-Fascism
April 8, 2026 by Alice Crary
Philosophy in the Time of Techno-Fascism
2
Driven Mad by a Marxist Daughter
March 25, 2024 by Justin Joque
Driven Mad by a Marxist Daughter
3
JFK’s Queer White House
December 13, 2018 by Claire Potter
JFK’s Queer White House
4
Gender as Colonial Object
July 26, 2018 by Lucas Ballestín
Gender as Colonial Object
5
When the Penis Is Property
June 11, 2020 by Kevin Mumford
When the Penis Is Property
The Latest
Sex & Gender
Everyone Loves the Straight-Passing Gay Man
May 5, 2026 by Tanmay Pandya
Everyone Loves the Straight-Passing Gay Man
Art & Design
The Avant-Garde Intersection of Léon-Paul Fargue and Marie Monnier
May 4, 2026 by Chris Holdaway
The Avant-Garde Intersection of Léon-Paul Fargue and Marie Monnier
Film & Performing Arts
What Does Disabled Dance Look Like?
April 30, 2026 by Liana Zhen-ai
What Does Disabled Dance Look Like?
Philosophy
What Is a Beagle?
April 30, 2026 by Aaron Neber
What Is a Beagle?
Science & Technology
We Need Industrial Agriculture
April 29, 2026 by Rafael Gonzalez
We Need Industrial Agriculture

The New School

Public Seminar is a journal of ideas and debate published by the Public Seminar Publishing Initiative at The New School. Our free, nonprofit publication is made possible by the support of The New School and the generosity of our readers.

Newsletter

Free to subscribe. No spam.
Delivered by Substack.

Connect With Us

Instagram
Bluesky
Facebook
Twitter

Copyright © 2014–2026 The Editorial Board of Public Seminar, All Rights Reserved.