Ralph Bunche Institute

Ukraine Moving Towards Peace?
2025-10-15 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Graduate Center, Skylight Room 9th Floor, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
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Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right
2025-11-04 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | Graduate Center Room 8301, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join for a conversation between Laura Field and Richard Wolin on the intellectual descent from mid-century conservatism to Trumpism—one tracing its historical gestation, the other its ideological mutation—and as a warning that the U.S. now faces a radical, post-conservative right driven more by myth and ressentiment than by any genuine political philosophy.

Book Event: The Information State
2026-03-16 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Graduate Center, Skylight Room 9th Floor, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
A conversation between Jacob Siegel and Eli Karetny

Date: March 16, 2026
Time: 6:00PM
Place: Skylight Room, Graduate Center CUNY 365 Fifth Ave, New York.

We’re often told that disinformation is everywhere and that it’s endangering our democracy. But what if the war on disinformation itself is really just a weapon to squash any and all legitimate dissent?
The Information State is an incisive examination of how we reached the point where anything that contradicts the dominant narrative can be labeled dangerous disinformation. Tablet contributor Jacob Siegel charts how the technological infrastructure built to make society safer and more rational has steadily replaced democratic freedoms with systems of digital control. Commercial Internet applications now double as military-grade surveillance and influence tools. Government tech partnerships established after 2001 in response to the global war on terror took on a life of their own and now target Americans.
Instead of competing for voters’ support, the information state uses censorship, mass surveillance, and algorithmic manipulation to shape public perceptions as it tries to engineer reality. Government officials requested that social media companies boost stories about Donald Trump’s alleged connections to Russia, while censoring those about Hunter Biden’s laptops, the origins of the COVID-19 virus, and the war in Ukraine.
An alliance between government and tech companies formed to wage the war on terror has evolved into an unholy new kind of technocratic state and turned against America’s own citizens. Laws signed by President Obama as he left office fused together the media, NGOs, the national security complex, and big tech companies into an unelected ruling party. In short, the information war came home and completely overtook American politics during the hyperpolarization of the Trump era and the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Information State is an urgent, necessary book that sounds the alarm on where society is headed in the age of AI if we don’t relearn how to think for ourselves and ask searching questions about whether information can ever be a substitute for truth.We’re often told that disinformation is everywhere and that it’s endangering our democracy. But what if the war on disinformation itself is really just a weapon to squash any and all legitimate dissent?
The Information State is an incisive examination of how we reached the point where anything that contradicts the dominant narrative can be labeled dangerous disinformation. Tablet contributor Jacob Siegel charts how the technological infrastructure built to make society safer and more rational has steadily replaced democratic freedoms with systems of digital control. Commercial Internet applications now double as military-grade surveillance and influence tools. Government tech partnerships established after 2001 in response to the global war on terror took on a life of their own and now target Americans.
Instead of competing for voters’ support, the information state uses censorship, mass surveillance, and algorithmic manipulation to shape public perceptions as it tries to engineer reality. Government officials requested that social media companies boost stories about Donald Trump’s alleged connections to Russia, while censoring those about Hunter Biden’s laptops, the origins of the COVID-19 virus, and the war in Ukraine.
An alliance between government and tech companies formed to wage the war on terror has evolved into an unholy new kind of technocratic state and turned against America’s own citizens. Laws signed by President Obama as he left office fused together the media, NGOs, the national security complex, and big tech companies into an unelected ruling party. In short, the information war came home and completely overtook American politics during the hyperpolarization of the Trump era and the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Information State is an urgent, necessary book that sounds the alarm on where society is headed in the age of AI if we don’t relearn how to think for ourselves and ask searching questions about whether information can ever be a substitute for truth.
