Death Archives - Public Seminar

Public Health

Death Rights

The risks of New York State’s new Medical Aid in Dying law

February 19, 2026 • by Megan Robinson

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAiD) into state law in early February, months after the legislation passed the state Senate in June 2025. The bill’s passing prompted an extended period of debate, advocacy, and amending, centered on whether mentally competent, terminally ill New ...

Film & Performing Arts

Singer-Songwriter Indigo de Souza on Death and the Beauty of Life

Only in accepting our mortality can we begin to infuse our lives with purpose

December 13, 2023 • by Robert Noble

The opening track of de Souza’s first album is titled “How I Get Myself Killed.” It’s a straightforward indie-rock cut, with a simple chord progression and cathartic release. “This is probably how I get myself killed,” she repeats in the chorus’s refrain. It’s unclear exactly what she is referring to. ...

Singer-Songwriter Indigo de Souza on Death and the Beauty of Life

Interviews

Does Time Pass or, Do We Pass the Time?

Lisa Hsiao Chen explores what it is that keeps us going

April 13, 2022 • by Shweta Nandakumar and Lisa Hsiao Chen

Lisa Hsiao Chen’s Activities of Daily Living examines the interconnections between work and life, loneliness and kinship, and the projects that occupy our time. Moving between present-day and 1980s New York City, with detours to Silicon Valley and the Venice Biennale, this is a vivid, and tender examination of the ...

Uncategorized

Against Biopolitics

Compensation and Confinement: Entombing the Academic Left

September 25, 2020 • by Angel Octavio Alvarez Solis and Gonzalo Bustamante Moya

Biopolitics rules, but does not govern. Even if some thinkers have insisted on describing its explicative limits or have tried to grasp the implications of accepting its truth, biopolitics is still the main tone that characterizes contemporary public opinion. What is so fascinating or productive about explaining pandemics in biopolitical ...

Music

David Bowie’s Future Revolution

Why the music made us feel so alive — and his death is still so hard to take

April 21, 2020 • by Simon Critchley

On the title track of Blackstar, released just a couple of days before his death, Bowie sings, “I’m not a pop star.” For me, and for his millions of fans, he was much more than that. He was someone who simply made us feel alive. This is what makes his ...

Blue Monday

Between Past and Future

Thinking about life and death

April 23, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington I attended an interesting talk yesterday. Being a young scholar, the speaker was (of course) using PowerPoint. At one moment in the talk he referenced a “recent argument” that he would engage. As he did ...

Feature

GIDEST: End of Life

A nonfictional film

November 17, 2017 • by GIDEST

End of Life recently premiered at Doclisboa in Lisbon and will soon have its North American premiere at the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival. GIDEST is a Mellon-funded research institute based at The New School that incubates transdisciplinary research at the intersection of social theory, art, and design. As well as our faculty, ...