Society Archives - Public Seminar

Interviews

Dismantling Truths About Emerging Adulthood

A conversation with Rainesford Stauffer: Breaking down the structural challenges behind living your #BestLife

April 12, 2022 • by Rainesford Stauffer and Shivani Somaiya

We need a really radical re-imagining of, not just how we think about young adulthood, but how we move through our lives and where we find value. I would want people to know that this myth of young adulthood is not your individual burden. Doing the best you can within ...

Dismantling Truths About Emerging Adulthood

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

What makes the arts an essential part of a society is their freestanding value—a value that cannot be described as radical, liberal, or conservative

February 28, 2022 • by Jed Perl

While there have been many periods when the arts inspired some sort of controversy, different times have different troubles. In our data- and metrics-obsessed era, the central problem is that the imaginative ground without which art cannot exist is under threat....

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

Feature

Roland Barthes Reports from the Sanatorium

A new collection examines how institutions infantilize society

December 7, 2018 • by Roland Barthes and Jody Gladding

Album: Unpublished Correspondence and Texts, recently published by Columbia University Press, provides an unparalleled look into Roland Barthes' life of letters. It presents a selection of correspondence, from his adolescence in the 1930s through the height of his career and up to the last years of his life, covering such topics as ...

Roland Barthes Reports from the Sanatorium

Feature

Anthony Bourdain, Family Values, and Ageism

Past Present Episode 136

June 26, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this week's episode, Neil, Niki, and Natalia debate the legacy of Anthony Bourdain, the end of “family values” conservatism, and ageism as a form of discrimination. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The late Anthony Bourdain helped define the now familiar figure of the “celebrity chef.” ...

Anthony Bourdain, Family Values, and Ageism

Feature

Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism

An excerpt from Judy Wajcman’s latest book

May 31, 2018 • by Judy Wajcman

There is a widespread perception that life is faster than it used to be, and smartphones and the Internet are continually being blamed. In Pressed for Time, Judy Wajcman explains why we immediately interpret our experiences with digital technology as inexorably accelerating everyday life. She argues that we are not mere ...

Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism

Feature

Self-Limitation and Democracy

On the Ability of Society to Self-Regulate

February 7, 2018 • by Yavor Tarinski

[F]or the impulse of mere appetite is slavery, while obedience to a self-prescribed law is liberty. Jean-Jacques Rousseau[1] The philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis has often been credited with saying that "democracy is the regime of self-limitation." [2] But since for him the only true democratic form is direct democracy, this claim might seem a bit ...