The Global Civil War

Gray Reflections on a Gray Friday Morning

It’s a cultural war that here and there sometimes includes guns. It is hard to see the end of it, short of victory or defeat, as it is important to realize it has long been with us. The war is being fought as a struggle between the good guys and ...
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The Global Civil War

For Conservatives, It’s Stormy Weather

Is the GOP dividing over Trump’s scandalous personal life?

Why are so many Christian conservatives refusing to criticize Donald Trump's pay to play sex life? The news of a $130,000 settlement made to porn star Stephanie Clifford, a.k.a. Stormy Daniels, via alleged fixer Michael Cohen, is only the latest episode in which conservative religious leaders and the voters they ...
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For Conservatives, It’s Stormy Weather

A Civics Lesson for Trump and Sessions

Sanctuary Cities and the Trump Administration

As if we needed any further reminders of the reckless disregard for law and the Constitution rampant in the Trump Era, a panel of Republican federal judges has forcefully rejected efforts to punish so-called Sanctuary Cities by curtailing federal grant funds. It is a fair barometer to assume that when ...
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In Between Her Legs

Theorizing feminine space

“There is no getting round the fact that each man and woman came out of a woman.” -- D.W. Winnicott, 1964 In her recent book Feminine Law: Freud, Speech and the Voice of Desire, psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist Jill Gentile puts forth a call to name the vagina. Through rigorous analysis ...
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In Between Her Legs

The Demonization of Ethel Rosenberg

An excerpt from Trans-generational Trauma and the Other

The Demonization of Ethel Rosenberg, by Adrienne Harris, appears in Trans-generational Trauma and the Other, a volume of essays published in 2017 psychoanalytically meditating on the question of the transgenerational transmission of trauma, metastasizing and alienated historical ghosts, and the inter-subjectivity of Big History. Public Seminar spoke with Dr Harris – who is, among many ...
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The Demonization of Ethel Rosenberg

Trump’s Bottling of Old Wine

Can we finally lose our bipartisan taste for workfare?

It is tempting to see President Trump’s executive order directing his agencies to find ways to require work as a condition for receiving means-tested benefits as another example of his outsized callousness. By casting all means-tested aid programs as “welfare,” Trump’s executive order supersizes “workfare” by linking benefits to work. There are ...
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Trump’s Bottling of Old Wine

The Art of [Breaking] the Deal

Trump Administration to roll back national auto efficiency and emissions standards

The Trump Administration’s decision to roll back national auto efficiency and emissions standards and challenge California’s right to set tougher criteria will not only make Americans sicker and increase dependency on foreign oil. Trump’s unilateral action will violate an understanding that taxpayers would not finance the revitalization of a non-competitive ...
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The Art of [Breaking] the Deal

Is Amartya Sen 21st Century’s ‘Great Critic’ of Capitalism?

A response to Tim Rogan

Tim Rogan, in an essay recently published by Aeon, claims that Amartya Sen is the “Century’s Great Critic of Capitalism.” He states that Sen deserves this attribute because of his groundbreaking approach to capitalist critique, wherein he combines the moral and material critiques of capitalism that have hitherto remained two distinct ...
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Is Amartya Sen 21st Century’s ‘Great Critic’ of Capitalism?

How to Learn from Conservatives

Stop talking and listen

In February, I was able to attend the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference, held annually in a conference center outside Washington, D.C. I live blogged two days of general sessions, interviewed people, heard numerous speakers, and was present at a Trump rally. I had the opportunity to talk to a ...
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How to Learn from Conservatives

An Open Letter Regarding “Soros Mercenaries” at CEU

Michael Ignatieff, President and Rector of CEU

Dear Friends, Today, Hungarian media outlet Figyelo carried an article listing a few hundred people including members of the CEU community, who 'may' be on the list of so-called "Soros mercenaries." The publication of such a list is contemptible. CEU issued a press statement condemning this. This is a flagrant attempt ...
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An Open Letter Regarding “Soros Mercenaries” at CEU

Gray Memory

On a Self-limiting Collective Imagination

“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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Gray Memory