Gregory Laski

Sewickley

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Articles

Black Sewickley residents preserve their history through film

Jan 2, 2025 | publicsource.org | Gregory Laski

Gwen Cole Strickland always felt “upset and angry” after watching documentaries chronicling Black history in the United States. The stories of enslavement and segregation made her feel like she “wasn’t wanted” in this country, a sentiment the 74-year-old never experienced growing up within the vibrant Black community of Sewickley, a suburb located about a 14-mile drive northwest of Pittsburgh.
Misanthropy Is Having a Moment

Dec 5, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Alex Rossen |Gregory Laski |Josephine Houman |Miranda Young

Joint Landscape (15-9-1546) | Shen Zhou / Public DomainIf you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of a negative outlook on humanity, then David E. Cooper’s Pessimism, Quietism, and Nature as Refuge (Agenda Publishing, 2024) might be just the book for you. Cooper’s “negative judgement on the moral and spiritual failings of humankind” focuses readers’ attention on our species’ fundamental and inalienable propensity for envy, anger, egoism, insatiable greed, and deceit.
Beyond Rank Ambition: Can Colleges Save Democracy?

Nov 1, 2024 | publicbooks.org | Gregory Laski

The first US News & World Report college rankings appeared in 1983, the same year I was born. Home was a Pittsburgh suburb situated between one of the region’s richest zip codes and a former steel town named for the company that gave it life, and then left.
August Wilson’s “Radio Golf” Still Timely

Sep 9, 2024 | beltmag.com | Gregory Laski

By Gregory Laski This story was originally published by PublicSource, a nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region. For more of its journalism, visit www.publicsource.org.”Across the pavement of Bedford Avenue in the Hill District, two structures stare at one another, as if their facades want to speak about the history they’ve weathered. The August Wilson House sits on one side.
August Wilson’s revamped “Radio Golf” explores race, class and gentrification on the Hill

Aug 12, 2024 | publicsource.org | Gregory Laski |Natasha Vicens

Across the pavement of Bedford Avenue in the Hill District, two structures stare at one another, as if their facades want to speak about the history they’ve weathered. The August Wilson House sits on one side. Recently restored, the building was the childhood home of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright born in the Hill District in 1945.
Typewriter Combat

Jun 5, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Claire Potter |Evangeline Riddiford Graham |Gregory Laski |Basak Kus

Picture this: it’s 1936, the depths of the Great Depression in New York City, and you are a bright, Jewish, first-generation American man. You are a teenager, maybe even as young as fifteen or sixteen, from the Lower East Side, Brownsville, Brooklyn, or the Bronx. You’re smart, you’ve finished high school, and what your parents want more than anything else is for you to get a college degree and be a professional, not a garment worker or shopkeeper like they are.
The Ten-Dollar Founding Father

Jun 5, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Claire Potter |Evangeline Riddiford Graham |Gregory Laski |Basak Kus

It was May 12, 2009. A crowd had assembled at the White House for a program billed as “An Evening of Poetry & Music & The Spoken Word.” Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States, and his wife, Michelle, had been in residence for less than five months. I doubt that anyone remembers who else performed that night.
The Furies Reconsidered

Jun 3, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Gregory Laski |Josephine Houman |Abby Merrick |Miranda Young

“Head of a Fury” (ca. 1750–1800) | Unknown artist / Cooper Hewitt / Public domainIn Elizabeth Flock’s new book, the Furies—female agents of revenge in Greek tragedy—are alive and well in our world today. Published earlier this year, The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice (Harper, 2024) opens with a powerfully personal origin story. Flock recounts that, while on a summer trip to Rome when she was 21, a tour guide raped her.
Gregory Laski, Author at Public Seminar

Jun 3, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Gregory Laski

Public Seminar is a journal of ideas, politics, and culture published by the Public Seminar Publishing Initiative at The New School. We are a non-profit organization, wholly supported by The New School, and by the generosity of our sponsors and readers.