“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...

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-...

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...

“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...

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...

“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...

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...

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 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...

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-...

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-...

“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...

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...

“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-...

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...

“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...

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...

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...

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...

“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...

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...

“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...

In Julia Foulkes’s playful imagining of the internal dialogue of José Clemente Orozco’s New School mural, revolutionaries butt heads and shout from the walls, hashing out decades-old spats. publicseminar.org/2026/05/oroz...

Speaking with Cleo Levin, Megan Milks describes how their new collection of essays, Mega Milk, delves into gender, eugenics, and the “vast library of milk books in the world.” publicseminar.org/2026/05/inte...

“Stagg delicately suspends her narrator between the book’s two poles: the intensity of memory and the skepticism of the present.” —Katie Pruden reviewing Natasha Stagg’s latest novel, Grand Rapids. @semiotexte.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/05/revi...

Rida Chaudhry speaks with filmmaker Areeb Zuaiter about the making of her documentary, Yalla Parkour. publicseminar.org/2026/05/the-...

“The poet is almost taken aback to be shunted once again through the revolving door only to encounter the embroideries of Monnier.” —A new translation by Chris Holdaway reveals modernist poet Léon-Paul Fargue’s ecstatic writing on avant-garde artist Marie Monnier. publicseminar.org/2026/05/leon...

Missed this extremely thoughtful response to Lab Dog, putting the book in conversation with recent beagle debates in Wisconsin and beyond and larger questions of animal ethics

Today at @publicseminar.bsky.social, an excerpt from the great @vickyacab.bsky.social's new book! The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World publicseminar.org/2026/05/exce...

“Labanotation promised that the very key to self-understanding … was making legible the codes of body movement that, to most of us klutzes, is invisible.” —Madeleine Adams reviews Whitney E. Laemmli’s Making Movement Modern. @uchicagopress.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/05/revi...

A retirement luncheon forms the backdrop for Mary Karmelek’s short story reflecting on the Orozco frescoes, as a curious and slightly bitter secretary takes a last look at the mysterious drapes that hid part of Orozco’s work for years. publicseminar.org/2026/05/an-a...

Really enjoyed doing this interview about the book with @publicseminar.bsky.social! publicseminar.org/2026/04/inte...

Heated Rivalry's popularity was touted as a win for queer representation. But how radical is it to accept hypermasculine gay men? Tanmay Pandya reflects on the kind of gay men who receive complex onscreen portrayals and those reduced to comic relief. publicseminar.org/2026/05/heat...

“What does it mean to conserve a fresco (and the walls it’s painted into) inside an institution committed to experimentation and progress?” –Pascal Glissmann on what José Clemente Orozco’s New School murals can teach us about educational evolution publicseminar.org/2026/05/a-la...

“The movement for animal justice should be viewed as repairing the ideological distortions that have made animals—and many humans—subject to exactly these violent, instrumentalizing hierarchies.” – Aaron Neber on Brad Bolman’s Lab Dog @uchicagopress.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/04/what...

“Behind this struggle for intersectionality is a history of shifting ideas about what bodies should look like, how they should function and behave, and how they should be regulated.” —Liana Zhen-Ai offers an examination of the politics behind disability in dance. publicseminar.org/2026/04/what...

Rafael Gonzalez contrasts the romantic ideal of small-scale farming with the realities of feeding a global population. publicseminar.org/2026/04/we-n...

Histories of capitalism center the hourly-wage factory worker. But as Annie McClanahan discusses in an interview with Lina Moe about her new book, Beneath the Wage, we need to refocus the narrative on service jobs. @anniemcc.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/04/inte...

Jaime Arredondo takes a closer look at the pigments used in a uniquely colorful part of José Clemente Orozco’s New School mural: its rainbow. publicseminar.org/2026/04/oroz...

Gil Bittner reviews Night Night Fawn by Jordy Rosenberg, and discusses how the novel’s hallucinatory narration touches on motherhood, trans visibility, and political ideology. publicseminar.org/2026/04/revi...

Author and professor John Reed recounts how art world maven Alma Reed championed The New School’s Orozco murals amid a tense political climate, advocating educational and cultural liberation. publicseminar.org/2026/04/alma...

“I don’t think any album, pop or otherwise, should require this much work to be conceptually legible.” —Megan Robinson on Rosalía’s Lux and its shortcomings. publicseminar.org/2026/04/revi...

“Close attention reinforces skepticism about general matters, such as the purpose of life. It also allows us to understand just a bit about how other creatures think and feel.” —Peter Levine reflects on teaching skepticism in occupied Palestine and Ukraine. publicseminar.org/2026/04/teac...

“I wanted to stage a scenario where I could explore a certain question, which has interested me for some time: How do we relate to people who have harmed us?” —Larissa Pham in conversation with Jacqueline LeKachman on her new novel, Discipline. publicseminar.org/2026/02/lari...

“Has Israel not made a mockery of the rule of law? How can one look to international humanitarian law (IHL) as an effective way to deal with Israel’s decades-long occupation?“ – Coleson Smith on Francesca Albanese’s When the World Sleeps (Other Press, 2026) publicseminar.org/2026/04/revi...

“For years, you ignored your cousin’s displaced nationalism and imperial nostalgia to maintain peace in a group chat.” —M. B. Molavi on how war has exposed faultlines in the Iranian diaspora. publicseminar.org/2026/04/war-...

As peace talks between the US and Iran fail and the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and Gaza continue, we return to an essay from last April by Emmanuel Guerisoli on Israel’s reach for hegemony through what Guerisoli calls the “Gazification” of the Middle East. publicseminar.org/2025/04/isra...

“Any innovations, AI-related or otherwise, that overreach in relieving us of the need to confront the dissonance of each other’s viewpoints risk draining democracy’s lifeblood.” —Alice Crary on longterminism, AI ethics and democracy. publicseminar.org/2026/04/phil...

Iman Sultan reviews Stephanie LaCava’s Nymph, which follows a twenty-first century flaneuse as she navigates a world in which the objectified female body becomes a site of surveillance. publicseminar.org/2026/04/revi...

Political journalism: What is it good for? Writers and editors from Lux, n+1, Acacia, Hell Gate, and This Machine Kills discuss the mechanics and stakes of their work amidst a media landscape in violent flux. publicseminar.org/2026/04/publ...