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Public Seminar
@publicseminar.bsky.social
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publicseminar.bsky.social
Public Seminar @publicseminar.bsky.social · 25d
"I Found Myself … The Last Dreams creates a space somewhere above and beyond the carceral structures that dominate the Egyptian sociopolitical landscape."

—Mariam Matar on a new Naguib Mahfouz collection that maps Cairo through dreams. @ndbooks.bsky.social

publicseminar.org/2025/11/nagu...
Naguib Mahfouz’s Last Dreams of Cairo - Public Seminar
Mariam Matar’s reflective essay on Naguib Mahfouz’s new posthumous collection I Found Myself … The Last Dreams, translated by Hisham Matar, with photos by Diana Matar.
publicseminar.org
publicseminar.bsky.social
“Chief among the book’s documentary achievements is its laying out of the breadth of the devastation wrought by the Israeli government and its (mostly) Western enablers.”

—Coleson Smith reviews Gaza: The Story of a Genocide
@versobooks.bsky.social

publicseminar.org/2025/11/revi...
Palestinians in Their Own Words, Their Own Genres - Public Seminar
Coleson Smith reviews Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, an anthology grounded in first-person accounts from writers, doctors, and poets.
publicseminar.org
December 5, 2025 at 8:44 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
70 years after Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Bennett Parten shares a genealogy of social protest:

“Nonviolent resistance, after all, is a twentieth-century version of what many American abolitionists knew as simply “nonresistance.”

publicseminar.org/2025/11/gene...
From William Lloyd Garrison to Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. - Public Seminar
Bennett Parten traces the history of nonviolent resistance in the United States, from William Lloyd Garrison to Martin Luther King Jr.
publicseminar.org
December 5, 2025 at 6:35 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"If the average American thinks a Super Bowl halftime show tests the limits of cultural comfort, the 2026 World Cup will be something else entirely."

—Sean Jacobs and Ivan Pech Luna on a tournament that promises to shake up US soccer. @seanjacobs.bsky.social
publicseminar.org/2025/11/eigh...
Eight Months to Learn Spanish - Public Seminar
As the 2026 World Cup arrives in North America, Sean Jacobs and Iván Pech Luna argue that the tournament will mark soccer’s full arrival in the United States, challenging English-only notions of Ameri...
publicseminar.org
December 4, 2025 at 5:22 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
“This was not the chaos of war. This was the systematic destruction of the infrastructure that keeps women alive.”

—Urgent writing from Ayotunde Giwa on the geopolitical calculations leaving Sudan's women exposed to sexual violence and genocide.

publicseminar.org/2025/12/geno...
Attacks on Women’s Bodies Reveal the Logic of Genocide in Sudan - Public Seminar
Sudan’s genocide targets healthcare, weaponizes sexual violence, and destroys the systems designed to protect women, writes Ayotunde Giwa.
publicseminar.org
December 3, 2025 at 5:15 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
“What fascism offers is the promise of pleasure and the promise of a sense of superiority.”
—Dagmar Herzog chats w Adam Koehler Brown about her latest book, The New Fascist Body. @nssrnews.bsky.social
publicseminar.org/2025/11/new-...
Fascism's Body Politics - Public Seminar
Dagmar Herzog explains how ableism's historical legacy informs the fascisms of Donald Trump and Germany's AfD.
publicseminar.org
December 3, 2025 at 2:01 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
“Back in my teenage years, I was a terrible writer but ended up becoming a pretty good writer. So I know it can be taught.”
—Susan Cheever chats w Elizabeth Mirabelle about letting the writing “take over” in her new book
@nssrnews.bsky.social @fsgbooks.bsky.social
publicseminar.org/2025/11/susa...
Susan Cheever on Her New Book, When All the Men Wore Hats - Public Seminar
In this in-depth interview, Susan Cheever discusses the origins of her new book When All the Men Wore Hats, her lifelong engagement with her father John Cheever’s work, and the magical process through...
publicseminar.org
November 25, 2025 at 9:00 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
Mariam Matar reviews Naguib Mahfouz's posthumous story collection I Found Myself … The Last Dreams, which maps that liminal space where language, longing, and the city converge.
@nssrnews.bsky.social @ndbooks.bsky.social
publicseminar.org/2025/11/nagu...
Naguib Mahfouz’s Last Dreams of Cairo - Public Seminar
Mariam Matar’s reflective essay on Naguib Mahfouz’s new posthumous collection I Found Myself … The Last Dreams, translated by Hisham Matar, with photos by Diana Matar.
publicseminar.org
November 25, 2025 at 8:08 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"I Found Myself … The Last Dreams creates a space somewhere above and beyond the carceral structures that dominate the Egyptian sociopolitical landscape."

—Mariam Matar on a new Naguib Mahfouz collection that maps Cairo through dreams. @ndbooks.bsky.social

publicseminar.org/2025/11/nagu...
Naguib Mahfouz’s Last Dreams of Cairo - Public Seminar
Mariam Matar’s reflective essay on Naguib Mahfouz’s new posthumous collection I Found Myself … The Last Dreams, translated by Hisham Matar, with photos by Diana Matar.
publicseminar.org
November 12, 2025 at 4:42 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
“With each restaffing of the executive suite, the studios seem to arrive at the same conclusion: Better invest in a small number of blockbusters than a wider array of mid-budget movies.”
—Amelia Nonemacher on the shortcomings of the summer blockbuster system
publicseminar.org/2025/11/good...
Good Versions of the Right Film - Public Seminar
Amelia Nonemacher on what the summer blockbuster accomplished (or failed to achieve) for Hollywood in 2025.
publicseminar.org
November 5, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Public Seminar
larryglickman.bsky.social
On the 20th anniversary of that debate, I wrote about that line from the debate for @publicseminar.bsky.social.
publicseminar.org/essays/why-b...
Why Business Depends on Big Government - Public Seminar
Photo Credit: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock ————— One of the most telling statements of our political era was made by...Read More
publicseminar.org
November 4, 2025 at 8:47 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"What’s changed since the days of the Holland Tunnel’s construction isn’t just the escalation of zoning wars and NIMBYism in US cities and suburbs.”
—Achilles Kallergis on Klein and Thompson's ABUNDANCE and the tug-of-war over who gets to build where in housing a crisis.
bit.ly/497F8RP
What Makes Cities Go BANANA? - Public Seminar
Achilles Kallergis on New York City NIMBYism, restrictive zoning, and Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance.
publicseminar.org
November 4, 2025 at 6:29 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
“I hate to canvass. My hatred of it is precisely why I chose to do it: There’s nothing meritorious in donating money if you can do something you hate as proof, if only to yourself, of your serious commitment.”
— Mitchell Abidor on how Mamdani’s big dreams drew him
publicseminar.org/2025/10/canv...
A Mayor Who Promises the Moon - Public Seminar
Mitchell Abidor on what motivates a jaded leftist to canvass for Zohran Mamdani and the political power of dreaming.
publicseminar.org
October 31, 2025 at 6:27 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"Shakespeare, according to Voltaire, offered only an 'obscure Chaos, composed of Murders and Buffooneries.'”

—Sophia Charles charts how French critics went from treating Shakespeare as hack to revering him as a genius over the course of a century of social upheaval
publicseminar.org/2025/10/shak...
Shakespeare Among the French Romantics - Public Seminar
What can Shakespeare's reception by France's Classicist and Romantic writers tell us about the changing values of French society?
publicseminar.org
October 30, 2025 at 8:09 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"To treat Mamdani’s membership in the DSA as a threat to Western civilization is absurd. New York is a city where a single chocolate chip cookie costs seven dollars! Radical change is needed here."
—Mitchell Abidor goes door-knocking for the #mamdani campaign
publicseminar.org/2025/10/canv...
publicseminar.org
October 29, 2025 at 7:46 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"Is drawing on Romanticism’s bequest, with its emphasis on the individual and its dregs of inward spirituality, the right model for reconciliation?"
—@sarahvschweig.bsky.social on Charles Taylor's COSMIC CONNECTIONS
@nssrnews.bsky.social @harvardpress.bsky.social
publicseminar.org/2025/10/poet...
Can Poetry Re-enchant the Modern World? - Public Seminar
In a review of Charles Taylor's new book, Sarah V. Schweig discusses individualism and modern re-enchament
publicseminar.org
October 29, 2025 at 4:26 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
Poet Wendy Xu chats with
@armando-gabriel.bsky.social
about challenging the expectations of documentary writing in her new book, YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS, out now with
@uofmpress.bsky.social
@nssrnews.bsky.social @newschoolalumni.bsky.social
publicseminar.org/2025/10/anim...
Animated by Not Knowing - Public Seminar
Poet Wendy Xu asks what a document knows in her new book, Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds.
publicseminar.org
October 27, 2025 at 8:45 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"Digital 'prospecting' evokes a long history of outsiders extracting knowledge and artifacts without consent."
—Annie K. Lamar and Sarah B. McClure on an "Indiana Jones–style" treasure hunt sponsored by OpenAI.
publicseminar.org/2025/10/ai-i...
Data Sovereignty vs. Digital Prospecting - Public Seminar
OpenAI’s “AI to Z Challenge” invited users to hunt for archaeological sites in the Amazon using AI models—but critics say the contest blurred ethics, ignored Indigenous rights, and turned cultural her...
publicseminar.org
October 27, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Reposted by Public Seminar
katiekelaidis.bsky.social
A book review par moi @publicseminar.bsky.social of an important novel by Sergey Khazov-Cassia, now available in English: publicseminar.org/2025/10/the-...
The Gospel According to Queer Russians - Public Seminar
Sergey Khazov-Cassia’s The Gospel According to…reimagines the story of Christ to expose Russia’s persecution of queer people and the complicity of Western spectators in Putin’s “family values” crusade...
publicseminar.org
October 22, 2025 at 6:27 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"Of all the ways Frantz Fanon has been misinterpreted, none is more persistent or consequential than the misunderstanding of his theory of violence."
—Kwach Abonyo on intimate acts of defiance as a form of inward combat in African uprisings.
publicseminar.org/2025/10/fran...
Frantz Fanon and Africa’s Postcolonial Predicament - Public Seminar
Frantz Fanon believed decolonization required the destruction of colonial psychology, not just colonial regimes. In Africa, that work remains unfinished, writes Kwach Abonyo.
publicseminar.org
October 15, 2025 at 2:57 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"It’s almost as if the selection committee for the recently ended sixty-third New York Film Festival (NYFF) was acknowledging that giants no longer walk the cinematic earth."

—Mitchell Abidor on the highs and lows of this year's New York Film Festival
publicseminar.org/2025/10/2025...
Revelations and Reservations at the 2025 New York Film Festival - Public Seminar
Mitchell Abidor reviews the troubled family films at 2025 New York Film Festival and the tributes paid to Bergman and Godard.
publicseminar.org
October 14, 2025 at 8:30 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"Thiel gestures toward Christianity, founder heroism, and technological disruption as some form of civilizational CPR.
But what does he, Peter Thiel, offer, really? Salvation? Liberation?"
—Ahmed Bouzid on Silicon Valley hubris and the faith of the future.
publicseminar.org/2025/09/pete...
Peter Thiel and the Decline of the West - Public Seminar
Ahmed Bouzid critiques tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel's idea that Christianity can redeem Western civilization from moral decline.
publicseminar.org
October 14, 2025 at 12:59 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"Even as they adopted a movement uniform that obscured individual identity, these communities of resistance wanted to be seen."
—Mike Harrington on the revolutionary style shared by the Zapatistas and the Black Panther Party.

publicseminar.org/2025/10/look...
Looking Back on the Zapatistas’ Revolutionary Fashion - Public Seminar
Mike Harrington reflects on the revolutionary fashion of the Zapatistas and the Black Panther Party—and the political power of self-expression.›
publicseminar.org
October 8, 2025 at 2:14 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"In a powerful account of his growing disenchantment with his parent’s conception of Israel as a utopia for Jews, Rosenberg presents Zionism as a flawed vision with a tragic aspect."

—Coleson Smith reviews a new edition of Rosenberg's ISRAEL: A Personal History
publicseminar.org/2025/10/a-lo...
A Lost Utopia - Public Seminar
Göran Rosenberg dismantles myths of Zionism and traces Israel’s history from utopian ideals to nationalist violence, writes Coleson Smith.
publicseminar.org
October 7, 2025 at 8:34 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"Gym selfies flex as credentials. Biceps stand in for character. Even the now-ubiquitous 'golden retriever energy' makes clear that softness is only welcome when housed in the right body."

Yann Phesans on gender readability and the price of admission to public life
publicseminar.org/2025/09/masc...
publicseminar.org
October 6, 2025 at 9:22 PM
publicseminar.bsky.social
"I would photograph my mom as a challenge to myself, to be able to earn my right to photograph someone else’s mom."

—Sohrab Hura on the existential crisis of photography, his MoMA PS1 show, and the delights of drawing.
By Alexandra Chaves @nssrnews.bsky.social
publicseminar.org/2025/10/impe...
Imperfect Images - Public Seminar
Photographer Sohrab Hura chats with Alexandra Chaves about image-making in times of social division and digital manipulation.
publicseminar.org
October 6, 2025 at 2:21 PM