Safety Is a Social Experiment
Walking while blind, Putin’s dismemberment problem, and more
In this week’s issue of Public Seminar, politics gets physical. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed finds rebellion in Ukrainian language, Mitchell Abidor sets us straight on the special pathos of “the Blind Man,” Igor Torbakov delves into Putin’s preoccupation with an injured Russian national body, the Past Present podcast investigates right-wing attacks on child labor protections, and more.
Am I Invisible?
“It’s over a year now that I’ve navigated using a white cane, and if I had a dollar for every time someone helped me to cross the street, I’d have a dollar.” Mitchell Abidor shares what it’s like to walk through New York City while legally blind. (May 10, 2023)
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Political Language
In the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire passed decrees that cast the Ukrainian language as a corruption of Russian and Polish. Finally, that false narrative is changing, writes Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed, as activists reclaim the unique voice of Ukraine. (May 10, 2023)
“A coherent picture emerges from the words of the inhabitants of Novosofiivka. There were few Russians here, or rather fighters from the puppet republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions; they lived together in one building, mainly engaged in protecting the bridge and bothering the local population.” Paweł Pieniążek reports on police investigations and recovery in territories recently regained by Ukraine. (May 9, 2023)
Igor Torbakov unpacks the Kremlin’s long preoccupation with Russo-Ukrainian “unity”—and how Vladimir Putin came to see himself as the leader “destined to reassemble the dismembered Russian national body.” (May 9, 2023)
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Listen to Labor
In the latest episode of Why Now?, Claire Potter chats with Annelise Orleck about the revolutionary Black women welfare organizers who successfully fought for job training, libraries, medical access, daycare, and housing for the poor in Las Vegas in the 1970s. (May 8, 2023)
Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil J. Young discuss the Republican legislatures rolling back protective child labor laws, in Episode 371 of Past Present. (April 25, 2023)