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...

“I’ve always felt that as a writer, you can learn as much, if not more, from books as you can from life.”—Nancy Lemann chats with Coleson Smith about her new novel, The Oyster Diaries, and a 20-year publishing dry spell. @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social publicseminar.org/2026/03/inte...

“People could always just disappear, of course, but I think one of the key sentences in the book is, ‘as soon as we invented texting, we invented not texting.’” —Dominic Pettman speaking with Mariana Giacobbe Goldberg about his new book, Ghosting: On Disappearing publicseminar.org/2026/03/ghos...

“Can it be made to imitate or produce virtuosity? I don’t care. This is not about an individual talent vs. an LLM. It’s about a collective population vs. tech and the Pentagon.” —Elvia Wilk on generative AI’s threat to labor rights and solidarity. publicseminar.org/2026/03/stop...

As the International Olympic Committee bans transgender athletes from participating in women’s Olympic categories, we return to Amelia Nonemacher’s argument that any trans advocacy based solely on the trans population’s relatively small size is deeply inadequate. publicseminar.org/2025/04/the-...

“Unlike the endless scroll of social media or streaming services, physical media forces you to make intentional choices about the things you want to share your space with.” — Eva Szilardi-Tierney on the resurgence of physical media among queer artists publicseminar.org/2026/03/quee...

The viral ‘Everything Shower’ promises self-liberation through a multi-step, ritualized self-care routine. Spanning Across Mormonism to luxury day spas, Drew Vogelsang discusses the social currencies, consequences, and histories of the trend. publicseminar.org/2026/03/ever...

“Because I wrote an optimistic book, I’m going to give an optimistic take on a very difficult situation.” —Dave Kamper speaking with Shea Dean on the current US labor movement, as told in his new book, Who’s Got the Power? publicseminar.org/2026/03/inte...

“I kept wondering why it felt like we were all living in the United States of Florida.” —Robert Fieseler discussing his latest book, American Scare, with Katelyn Kimberlin. publicseminar.org/2026/03/inte...

Award-winning Photographer Nancy Richards Farese captures the humanitarian crisis in Przemyśl, Poland, four years into the Russo-Ukrainian war and considers America’s identity after USAID shutdown. publicseminar.org/2026/03/usai...

“Rage has long been my normal state, but I had recently decided that impotent anger was no longer morally or politically sufficient: I had to do something.” —Mitchell Abidor on protective presence activism in the West Bank. publicseminar.org/2026/03/prot...

“The innocent child is both a fantasy and a concealment of violence.” —Alexandra Magearu on the idealized child versus the reality of childhoods filled with violence and displacement. publicseminar.org/2026/03/chil...

Nate Masso reviews New York’s first Gaza Biennale, “a global exhibition shaped by Palestinian artists working under a genocidal siege that places creative expression at the forefront of collective witnessing.” publicseminar.org/2026/03/the-...

“It became clear that roads and homes in Palestine were not only typical sites of domination–colonizer upon colonized–they were also zones of contestation between colonizer (British) and colonizer (Zionist).” –Chris Harding on Palestine’s Great Revolt. publicseminar.org/2026/03/cann...

“The apocalypse, in Majumdar’s world, arrives not with spectacle but with changes in government paperwork and individuals’ everyday errands and habits.” —Katya Wack on Megha Majumdar’s A Guardian and a Thief publicseminar.org/2026/02/love...

“Siken attempts to recover his language, body, and memory in an intensely autobiographical book of prose poems that is electrifying and difficult to read.” —Rayna Salam reviews Richard Siken's long-awaited poetry collection I Do Know Some Things. publicseminar.org/2026/02/revi...

New York recently became the 13th state to legalize medically assisted death. Such laws are often celebrated as wins for patient autonomy, but, as Megan Robinson writes, they can also act as a poor replacement for better healthcare and social services. publicseminar.org/2026/02/medi...

In an excerpt from her new book, What Would You Do Alone in a Cage With Nothing but Cocaine: A Philosophy of Addiction, Hanna Pickard explores how “addict” and “ex-addict” identities influence a person’s drug use. publicseminar.org/2026/02/exce...

Val Vinokur’s fourth installment in his poetry series The Ostriches brings us to da Vinci’s jail-breaking machines and the prison cells of 26 Federal Plaza in New York. publicseminar.org/2026/02/the-...

“For those of us who’ve never been to space, the reality of Earth’s vulnerability can be harder to hold onto. The way its beauty is inseparable from its vulnerability.” —Laurie Sheck on what we learn from the view from outer space publicseminar.org/2026/02/some...

“Due to North Korea’s political isolation, women’s football is one of the very few areas in which the country can display excellence to international audiences.” — Jung Woo Lee on how socialist feminism begat soccer stardom in the DPRK publicseminar.org/2026/02/femi...

“These days, I’m not sure that a sense of impending doom is a symptom of anything other than a proper perception of reality.” — Arthur Goldhammer on the inevitable consequences of “American impunity” publicseminar.org/2026/01/thin...

“What if [Renee] Good had the moral right to resist? Could she have been justified in noncompliance, even if she had hypothetically used potentially deadly force against the agents to defend herself?” —Michael Gregory on the morality of self-defense against ICE publicseminar.org/2026/01/the-...