Public Seminar Archives - Page 2 of 2

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The Banality of Good and Evil

Reflections of an anti-sociologist

May 25, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I want to make it simple and to the point. That’s the best way to go. But some days, as I think and write, things become more complicated, and I struggle. Today is such a day. I wanted to write a straightforward post on a straightforward theme, on mistakes and ...

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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 ...

The Banality of Evil and the Death of the Author

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Gray Memory

On a Self-limiting Collective Imagination

April 13, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” So wrote Milan Kundera. Years ago, I found in his bold assertion confirmation of the findings of my first major research project on the sociological dynamics of cultural freedom. I would like to think my study of ...

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Civility and Subversion in Dark Times

Answering the Question: Why Public Seminar?

April 6, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Why Public Seminar? Over the past four years, the doubtful, curious, intrigued and impressed have asked me this question, people at my university and at others, academics and non-academics, young and old, New Yorkers, Americans and colleagues from abroad, interested readers and potential contributors. I have answered in various ways, all ...

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By Any Means Necessary?

Reflecting on the Book Launch of # Charlottesville: Before and Beyond

March 2, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

We had a party last night, a book launch of #Charlottesville: Before and Beyond. It was a great event, a milestone, inspiring and gratifying. Hard work has yielded important results. I am personally pleased that my intuition that there is room on the web for critical consideration of significant issues, informed ...

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My Mother, Public Seminar, and Donald Trump, with an Assist from Red Foxx

The Life of the Mind Online

October 23, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Humor, especially of the most biting sort, is one way that we manage to live through dark times, both public and private.

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Confronting Fundamental Problems of the Human Condition and Pressing Problems of the Day… by any means necessary

Four years of Public Seminar

October 6, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Now many fine colleagues have joined the project, as we had hoped would happen. Their creative imagination, experience, scholarship and commitment have made it what it is today and what it promises to be tomorrow. Claire Potter and I oversee the operations in adjoining offices, across from The New School ...

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The Earth Quake, Hurricanes, Political Madness and Dilemmas of Free Speech

The Life of the Mind Online

September 22, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am bewildered. How can so much bad news be happening at the same time? A major earthquake, one horrendous hurricane after another, the Republicans in Congress on the brink of finally making sure that millions -- old, poor and infirm -- can’t go to the doctor? Then there is President ...

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The Life of the Mind Online

The Politics of Small Things, Civility and Subversion and Public Seminar

September 14, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The future of scholarly and intellectual life will be decided on the web. The values of scholarship and the application of the fruits of scholarship to the problems of our times will thrive or wither online. It was out of a desire to test this judgment that I started dabbling ...

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Witnesses to History

Past Present Celebrates Its 100th Broadcast

September 11, 2017 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

A little more than two years ago, three historians were frustrated with the lack of historical analysis in the 24-hour news cycle. We decided to stop yelling at the TV and to learn to speak evenly and with fewer profanities, into a foam-covered microphone. And so the history podcast Past ...