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Left Foot Forward  

Building a left strong enough to finally send the zombie of neoliberalism to its grave, while holding off Trumpism with the other hand, is a daunting task. But it’s in the struggle that we know we’re the ones still living.



Good Jurors, Bad Laws  

After convicting Occupy activist Cecily McMillan of felony assault on a police officer on May 5, twelve jurors walked into the light and discovered that they had, perhaps, condemned the twenty-five-year-old to turning thirty on Rikers Island. “Most just wanted …



Back to Utopia  

From the beginning, Dissent has been a haven for utopian ideas. An early essay by Irving Howe and Lewis Coser declared that socialism was “the name of our desire,” paraphrasing what Tolstoy had written about God. In 1954 it was …



BDS at Brooklyn College  

There’s been a great deal of controversy over the Brooklyn College Political Science Department’s sponsorship of a panel about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) — it’s now been largely resolved as progressive politicians have backpeddled their criticism.  BDS …





Introduction: Food and the Body Politic  

Americans are in the midst of a food-consciousness revival: on television, in the mouth of the First Lady, in endless articles celebrating urban agriculture can be found a sudden enthusiasm for the politically and, perhaps, spiritually curated dinner table. In …







Into the Ether  

Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership by Lewis Hyde Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010, 306 pp. In 1983, Lewis Hyde published The Gift, a meditation on gift economies where art and ideas escaped the indignity of a market value. …