Think in Public

Sharon Marcus and Caitlin Zaloom are the founders and editors in chief of Public Books. Marcus is Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Her books include Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England (2007) and The Drama of Celebrity (2019). Zaloom is associate professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University. She is the author of Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London (2006) and Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost (2019).

This timely, innovative, and important collection represents the best of public scholarship. The stunning essays in this volume demonstrate the significance of Public Books as a crucial online space for anyone committed to engaging ideas that shape the world in which we live. The sheer brilliance and vitality of this digital platform boldly shine through every page of this book.

• Introduction, by Sharon Marcus and Caitlin ZaloomPart I. Ask in PublicOn Accelerationism, by Fred TurnerJustice for Data Janitors, by Lilly IraniAnthropocene and Empire, by Stacey BalkanChanging Climates of History, by J. R. McNeillThe Year of Black Memoir, by Imani PerryPop Justice, by Frances Negrón-MuntanerA Black Power Method, by N. D. B. ConnollySoft Atheism, by Matthew EngelkeWhere Do Morals Come From?, by Philip GorskiThe Alchemy of Finance, by Kim Phillips-FeinHow Gentrifiers Gentrify, by Max HolleranSyria’s Wartime Famine at 100: “Martyrs of the Grass”, by Najwa al-QattanThe Mortal Marx, by Jeremy AdelmanWho Segregated America?, by Destin JenkinsThe Invention of the “White Working Class”, by Andrew J. PerrinGoing Deep: Baseball and Philosophy, by Kieran SetiyaThe World Silicon Valley Made, by Shannon MatternPart II. Think in PublicJill Lepore on the Challenge of Explaining Things: An Interview, by B. R. CohenJames Baldwin’s Istanbul, by Suzy HansenWhen Stuart Hall Was White, by James VernonAn Interview with Former Black Panther Lynn French , by Salamishah TilletBlack Intellectuals and White Audiences, by Matthew ClairCan There Be a Feminist World?, by Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakThe Story’s Where I Go: An Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin, by John PlotzThinking Critically About Critical Thinking, by Christopher SchabergIf You’re Woke You Dig It: William Melvin Kelley, by Eli RosenblattTranslating the Untranslatable: An Interview with Barbara Cassin, by Rebecca L. WalkowitzMy Neighbor Octavia, by Sheila LimingStop Defending the Humanities, by Simon DuringPainting While Shackled to a Floor, by Nicole R. FleetwoodPart III. Read in PublicTo Translate Is to Betray: On Elena Ferrante, by Rebecca FalkoffWhat Global English Means for World Literature, by Haruo ShiraneThe Stranger’s Voice, by Karl Ashoka BrittoCan’t Stop Screaming, by Judith ButlerThe Model-Minority Bubble, by Joseph Jonghyun JeonFree Is and Free Ain’t, by Salamishah TilletThe Mixed-Up Kids of Mrs. E. L. Konigsburg, by Marah GubarIn the Great Green Room: Margaret Wise Brown and Modernism, by Anne E. FernaldAfrofuturism: Everything and Nothing, by Namwali SerpellChick Lit Meets the Avant-Garde, by Tess McNultyFeeling Like the Internet, by Mark McGurlThe People v. O. J. Simpson as Historical Fiction, by Nicholas DamesKafka: The Impossible Biography, by Jan MieszkowskiShirley Jackson’s Two Worlds, by Karen DunakReading to Children to Save Ourselves, by Daegan MillerList of Contributors