Nancy K. Miller discusses autofiction, internet-speak, and other literary developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, asking: As modernism transformed the novel, will artificial intelligence now reframe the memoir genre? @socres.org publicseminar.org/2026/07/the-...

The New Millennium - Public Seminar

From The Invention of Painting (ca. 1808) | Louis Ducis / Public Domain Every style is a means of insisting...Read More

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In her review of Ben Lerner’s latest novel, Transcription, Elena Rotzokou explores how the pursuit of an exact recording can obscure the messy realities of family and friendship. publicseminar.org/2026/07/tran...

An Embarrassment of Exactness in Ben Lerner’s Transcription - Public Seminar

Truth, interpretation, and exactitude are entangled with the messy realities of family in Ben Lerner's latest novel.

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“The device of ventriloquism is awkward . . . it involves both distancing and intimacy.” — @lanalin.bsky.social speaking with Katie Pruden on writing from her partner’s perspective in The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam. @dorothyproject.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/07/inte...

The Queer Tendency of The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam - Public Seminar

Katie Pruden interviews author Lana Lin about reimagining Gertrude Stein’s form in The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam (Dorothy Project, 2026)

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Big tech jostles for market access, energy, and the most valuable resource of all, the state, writes Nolan Young in a review of Nick Srnicek’s new book, Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI. @politybooks.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/07/the-...

The Silicon Empire's Interregnum - Public Seminar

Nolan Yong reviews Nick Srnicek's Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI and discusses the fusion of big tech with state interests.

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“Hate expressed across different structural positions is received entirely differently: pathologized in some, legitimized in others.” —L. Zhang on Şeyda Kurt’s new book, Hate: The Uses of a Powerful Emotion @versobooks.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/07/agai...

Against “Peace and Love” - Public Seminar

Lydia Zhang reviews Şeyda Kurt’s, Hate: The Uses of a Powerful Emotion (Verso, 2025), newly translated from German to English.

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Shere Hite’s 1976 survey of women’s sex lives “broke the story that sex was not just a private affair between two people.” Speaking with Rachel Potter, Rosa Campbell discusses her new book on Hite, The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared. publicseminar.org/2026/07/re-r...

Re-Revolutionizing the Female Orgasm - Public Seminar

Rachel Potter interviews Rosa Campbell about her scholarly biography Shere Hite, The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared

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In a conversation with Gil Bittner, Thomsen discusses how language deployed in the name of queerness and reproductive justice can end up reinforcing the very structures it is meant to challenge. @ucpress.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/06/quee...

Minigolf, Watercolors, and Other Opportunities for "Doing Reproductive Justice Queerly" - Public Seminar

Carly Thomsen discusses reproductive justice from a queer perspective and calls for social transformation through collective care.

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As American public health infrastructure struggles to contain the parasitic infection cyclosporiasis, we return to a 2020 piece covering the nearly hundred-year history of conservative opposition to funding social programs. publicseminar.org/essays/socia...

Social Programs Are Not Socialism - Public Seminar

This week, Trump released his 2021 budget. It contains $800 billion worth of cuts in Medicaid over the next decade....Read More

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“The visitor is surrounded by robots, aliens, and cyborgs in all directions. The wealth of content is both a nod to and a strain on attention spans in our current technological age.” —Yazan Ashqar on the New Museum’s exhibition New Humans: Memories of the Future publicseminar.org/2026/07/revi...

Thinking Technology: New Humans at the New Museum - Public Seminar

Yazan Ashqar reviews New Humans: Memories of the Future, which inaugurated the New Museum’s recent reopening in late March 2026.

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In her review of Charlotte Strange’s latest chapbook, Strange Biology, Colette Estelle explores how Strange borrows online, medical, and marketing language about the microbiome to question political resistance, illness, and the body. publicseminar.org/2026/06/gut-...

Gut Feeling - Public Seminar

Colette Estelle reviews Charlotte Strange’s Strange Biology

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Siobhan Kattago reflects on Jeffrey C. Goldfarb’s latest book with an analysis of how our current state of “neo-totalitarianism” must be fought through openness tempered by a critical awareness of when compromise becomes collaboration. @ceu-press.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/05/gold...

Resisting Cynicism and Neototalitarianism - Public Seminar

Can “centrism” be “radical?” And how can “radicalism” be “centrist"? Jeffrey C. Isaac reflects on Jeffrey Goldfarb’s new book.

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“This right to comfort could both be language to think about the right to air conditioning in prisons [and] it could also help us think about what an abolitionist world might look like.” —Anna Terwiel talks to Madeline Trice on her book Prison Abolition for Realists publicseminar.org/2026/06/prac...

Practical Prison Abolition - Public Seminar

In an interview with Madeline Trice, scholar Anna Terwiel discusses her hopes for necessities like air conditioning inside the prison system.

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As Tamir Bell, Paul Draus, and Anna Müller watched Rwandans grapple with reintegrating perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, they witnessed how trust, vulnerability, and the space for return enables justice. publicseminar.org/2026/06/reco...

Learning Trust and Reconciliation in Rwanda - Public Seminar

Tamir Bell, Paul Draus, and Anna Müller visit a reconciliation village and look at Rwanda as an example of prison reform

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“Any effort to quantify historical judgment involves choices about what counts, how it is weighted, and how it is presented.” —Larry Schwartz on the problem with C-SPAN’s presidential ranking system publicseminar.org/2026/06/c-sp...

Judging Presidents - Public Seminar

C-SPAN’s Presidential Historians Survey is widely cited in evaluating presidential performance. Yet the survey is less neutral than it seems.

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In a review of Attensity!, a new manifesto on the value of living offscreen, Rachel Potter wonders about the efficacy of a book that invokes NPCs and lizard people in its quest to get us off our phones. publicseminar.org/2026/06/atte...

Read a Book, Knit a Sweater, Feel Good - Public Seminar

The Friends of Attention are sounding the alarm on our screen addition. So what's their alternative? Rachel Potter reviews ATTENSITY!

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On The New School’s past attempts to sell its murals by José Clemente Orozco, Gil Bittner writes that deaccessioning works that were made for specific universities is to betray “the school’s educational mission and intellectual legacy.” publicseminar.org/2026/06/when...

When The New School Tried to Sell the Orozco Room - Public Seminar

Gil Bittner argues that The New School's Orozco murals, like other university collection artworks, are educational resources, not fungible assets.

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“When does a simulacrum mark erasure—and when does it mark latency? When does it hollow out democratic life—and when does it preserve the grammar of its possible return?” —Elzbieta Matynia on how democracy can survive (or expire) through memory publicseminar.org/2026/06/simu...

Simulacra of Democracy - Public Seminar

Institutions remain. Elections take place. Speeches are delivered. Flags are raised. Unfortunately, this is not democracy but its simulacrum, writes Elzbieta Matynia.

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The late nun-turned-pop-artist Corita Kent’s legacy is one of engagement with radical change in both art and politics. Julie Allan explores the artist’s life and career in her review of the newly reissued Someday Is Now: The Art of Corita Kent. publicseminar.org/2026/06/the-...

The Good Word According to Sister Corita Kent - Public Seminar

Juliana

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As our longtime executive editor James Miller retires, he leaves us with a parting question: What if modern politics isn’t a battle of Left versus Right but between “capitalism and governance”? publicseminar.org/2026/06/has-...

Has Conservatism Outlived Its Usefulness? - Public Seminar

What matters in the current conjuncture is not whether a regime or a movement labels itself “conservative” or “radical,” liberal or progressive, writes James Miller.

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“Despite its leaders’ efforts to distance themselves from Trump’s anti-immigrant excesses, Canada is not the immigration utopia it purports to be.” —Rachel Charney McKenzie on Canada’s increasingly hostile policies for asylum seekers publicseminar.org/2026/06/roxh...

Three Years After Roxham, Canada Still Scapegoats US Immigration Law  - Public Seminar

If you want to learn more about Canada’s stance on immigration today, look to Roxham Road, writes Rachel McKenzie.

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Dominick DeJoy discusses the paradox of the Artist Status in Belgium: a much-needed social safety net that obscures the growing casualization of cultural labor. publicseminar.org/2026/06/belg...

The Artist Status as Managed Retreat - Public Seminar

Dominick DeJoy discusses how the Artist Status in Belgium only makes the underlying problems of growing casualization of cultural labor temporarily manageable.

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“No matter the outcome of this war, one result is already clear: The United States is more isolated in the world than ever before.” —Sylvia Taschka on the Trump administration abandoning even the pretense of democratic idealism. publicseminar.org/2026/05/the-...

The Waning of the American Illusion - Public Seminar

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Reflecting on José Clemente Orozco’s series of frescoes at The New School, Xavier Moyssén Álvarez asks: Without the presence of students and lively debate, can the mural’s dynamic symmetry be activated in the way that Orozco intended? publicseminar.org/2026/06/an-a...

An Artwork Animated by Its Audience - Public Seminar

Xavier Moyssén Álvarez discusses dynamic symmetry in the works of José Clemente Orozco

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“Strong parties once provided individuals with a sense of belonging and refuge from the loneliness of modernity.” Austin Tannenbaum reviews Anton Jäger’s newest book, Hyperpolitics, documenting neoliberalism’s erosion of the public sphere. publicseminar.org/2026/06/revi...

Capital’s Long War on Civic Society - Public Seminar

Austin Tannenbaum reviews Anton Jäger’s Hyperpolitics: "Participating in civic society is a vital part of our well-being."

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In their new book, Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff analyze the world’s richest person as representative of a new political-economic model. In a conversation with L. Zhang, the authors explore the future implications of “Muskism.” @harpercollins.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/06/inte...

Sovereignty Through Technology - Public Seminar

Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, in their conversation with L. Zhang, discuss the political-economic model they call "Muskism."

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In an interview with Colette Estelle, author Giada Scodellaro discusses her inspirations for Ruins, Child, including jazz vocals, landscape design for shared space, and the immediacy of cinema. @ndbooks.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/06/writ...

Writing Rooted in Community - Public Seminar

Colette Estelle interviews Giada Scodellaro about Ruins, Child (New Directions, 2026), a hybrid novel on proximity, grief, and community.

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Jeffrey C. Isaac explores how Jeffrey C. Goldfarb’s intellectual projects and relationship with Polish dissident Adam Michnik inform his dedication to “the radical center.” @ceu-press.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/05/gold...

Thoughts on “the Radical Center” and the Defense of Democracy - Public Seminar

Can “centrism” be “radical?” And how can “radicalism” be “centrist"? Jeffrey C. Isaac reflects on Jeffrey Goldfarb’s new book.

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“Asserting that gray is beautiful offers a tool against absolutism—of regimes, institutions, and individuals that attack democracy with lies, and of black-and-white solutions.” –Irit Dekel on Jeff Goldfarb’s latest book on democracy publicseminar.org/2026/05/gold...

Understanding the Retreat of Democracy With Jeff Goldfarb’s Gray Is Beautiful - Public Seminar

Irit Dekel reflects on the subtitle of Jeffrey Goldfarb’s new book: "Confronting the Retreat of Democracy From the Radical Center."

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Natasha Lennard and Adam Tooze discuss the current energy crisis, its long history, and the global forces shaping the future of energy. @adamtooze.bsky.social @natashalennard.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/05/inte...

A Staggering Reversal of Assumptions - Public Seminar

Natasha Lennard and Adam Tooze discuss the current energy crisis, its long history, and the global forces shaping the future of energy.

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“Rubio invokes Dante as a totem of Western excellence, but in a predictable irony, fails to realize that he summons a poet who indicts the very rhetorical mode in which Rubio operates.” —Daniel DiMassa on Marco Rubio’s Dante-inspired rhetorical turn publicseminar.org/2026/05/marc...

Marco Rubio in Dante’s Inferno - Public Seminar

Daniel DiMassa draws parallels between Secretary of State Marco Rubio's address to Europe and Ulysses' speech to his men in Dante's inferno

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