Public Seminar

At Public Seminar, we are committed to fostering discussions on the crucial issues facing our world today and building a shared global knowledge base. This independent initiative is part of The New School Publishing Initiative and involves contributions from faculty, students, and staff at The New School, along with support from collaborators worldwide. Our primary focus is on promoting the intellectual and cultural aspects of democracy, welcoming a variety of viewpoints. Leveraging our expertise in social sciences, humanities, design, and the arts, we strive to initiate and maintain meaningful conversations. It’s important to note that the opinions shared by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of The New School or the Public Seminar editorial team.

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Articles

Black Children, White Schools

2 weeks ago | publicseminar.org | Claire Potter |Sonali Chakravarti |Sophie Lewis |Natasha Lennard

On November 14, 1960, 6-year-old Tessie Prevost woke up and put on one of her prettiest dresses. Like Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Ruby Bridges, Tessie was a very special little girl. Along with hundreds of other Black children, the New Orleans Four, as they would forever be known, had taken a test. The test was devised by the Louisiana Pupil Placement Board after Brown v. Board of Education had declared separate but equal schools unconstitutional.
Enemy Feminisms - Public Seminar

2 weeks ago | publicseminar.org | Sophie Lewis

Cover of Enemy Feminisms by Haymarket Books (2025)Let’s be brave and swallow our bitter medicine. Feminists across the political spectrum have taken pains to define their troops as chaste and untainted by lust (especially interracial lust); not to mention maternal, i.e., pure, straight, removed from the realm of productive work; and “natural,” that is, not artificial, not “femme,” neither surgically nor chemically enhanced.
Yes, Some of Our Enemies Are Feminists

2 weeks ago | publicseminar.org | Natasha Lennard |Sophie Lewis

Sub-commandant Mary Allen (center), one of the earliest members of the Women’s Police Service, with four members of her force (1916) | Christina Broom / © National Portrait Gallery, LondonSophie Lewis, feminist scholar and author of Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation (Verso, 2022), reckons with Western feminism’s problematic history in her new book Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2025).
Elon Musk’s Cruel Moral Sentiments

3 weeks ago | publicseminar.org | David Williams |John Stoehr |Justin Joque |Katherine Kelaidis

The Raising of Lazarus (1619) | Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) / Metropolitan Museum of Art / Public DomainElon Musk may or may not be “the world’s richest man” these days, depending on the wildly fluctuating value of his Tesla car company, a target for those protesting Musk’s “move fast, break stuff” approach to downsizing the federal bureaucracy through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
If Eviction Is Personal for Us, It Should Be Personal for Our Landlords Too

1 month ago | publicseminar.org | Gabriela Rendón |Tracy Rosenthal |Leonardo Vilchis |Evangeline Riddiford Graham

Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles (2017) | Creative CommonsHow do we remake our cities for the people who actually live in them? Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two cofounders of the largest tenants’ union in the country, propose an answer in their new book, Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis (Haymarket, 2024).
Rent Is the Crisis

1 month ago | publicseminar.org | Tracy Rosenthal |Leonardo Vilchis |Premilla Nadasen |Thom Hartmann

Cover image of Abolish Rent by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis (Haymarket Books, 2024)Every first of the month, we hand over a share of our wages to meet our human need for housing. Our rents rise faster than our incomes, and inequality grows. Every first of the month, more tenants go without food, medication, and basic necessities to pay this tribute. More people take up residence with family, in cars, and in tents outdoors.
Why Progressive "Myths" Distort Solutions to the Housing Shortage

1 month ago | publicseminar.org | Richard McGahey |Liviu Chelcea |Michael Inman |Mary Karmelek

Residential buildings in New York City | M_Makarov / ShutterstockIn January 2025, Urban Matters, Center of New York City Affair’s weekly journal of ideas and opinion, wrapped up a wide-ranging two-part interview with noted urban policy expert Richard McGahey on the likely impact of New York City’s newly adopted “City of Yes”’” zoning package intended to jumpstart housing production.
How Venezuelans Reclaimed Their Communes

1 month ago | publicseminar.org | Gant Roberson |Federico Finchelstein |Joseph Matthews |Evangeline Riddiford Graham

11th Anniversary Celebration of El Maizal Commune (2020) | Katrina Kozarek / Venezuela AnalysisIn the central western region of Venezuela, a vast scenery of fertile land blends with the llanero(herdsman) culture of the people of Simón Planas township. Adults make use of children’s bicycles (received as Christmas gifts from the government) to meet the exigencies of day-to-day life, evoking “a forgotten episode in a magical realist novel,” in the words of author Chris Gilbert.
In Search of the Sublime … Underground

1 month ago | publicseminar.org | Mary Karmelek |Michael Inman |Liviu Chelcea |Achilles Kallergis

“An Underground Movement: Designers, Builders, Riders” by Owen Smith at NYCT 36th Street Station | Photo: David Lubarsky / Metropolitan Transportation AuthorityWeekday mornings, as I walk to the 36th Street subway stop in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, I quicken my pace, anxious that if I miss the train, I’ll be late for work; worried that if it’s too crowded, I won’t get a seat on the 40-minute commute that lies ahead.
Augusto Monterroso's The Rest Is Silence

2 months ago | publicseminar.org | Madeleine Adams |Joseph Matthews |Evangeline Riddiford Graham |Helen Schulman

A bigger burro? | Jürgen Scheeff / Unsplash LicenseIt’s difficult to write about The Rest Is Silence (trans. from the Spanish by Aaron Kerner, New York Review Books 2024) without sounding like Eduardo Torres, the puffed-up literary critic and protagonist of Augusto Monterroso’s metatextual satire—but I will do my best.