What does it mean to be called—or to call oneself—an intellectual today? At once enduring and unstable, revered and resisted, the intellectual in the US is increasingly embattled: mistrusted by the public, marginalized in politics, and rendered precarious, if not altogether expendable, within the very institutions that once sustained them. What does this say about our society and our collective priorities that reflection, dissent, and the slow labor of critical thinking are no longer widely seen as essential to public life?

This program, launching the Vera List Center’s two-year Focus Theme Matter of Intelligence, and the Seminar Series that accompanies it, convenes The New School faculty members, whether they identify as an intellectual or not, from across disciplines to reflect on the figure of the intellectual, especially the public intellectual—its histories and internal contradictions, the shifting roles it has played in public life, and the possibilities it may still hold. 

At a time of rising anti-intellectualism and mounting political pressures on higher education and public discourse, this seminar asks: Who is the public intellectual today? Are there forms of knowledge, critique, and commitment that we still expect—or resist—from this role? Can the intellectual still be of use? And for whom does it remain possible, or even imaginable? 

Faculty from across The New School—Omri Boehm, Simon Critchley, Camonghne Felix, Sean Jacobs, Natasha Lennard, Ethan Philbrick, and Cresa Pugh—offer brief presentations responding to these questions from their perspective and relationship to the term, whether personal, political, or historical, followed by a conversation. Carin Kuoni, Vera List Center Senior Director and Chief Curator, hosts and moderates.

Matter of Intelligence Seminar Series
Through modes of shared study, rehearsal, and iterative dialogue with invited artists, thinkers, and the public, the VLC Seminar Series develops and presents artistic and scholarly research centered on the Vera List Center’s 2025–2027 Focus Theme, Matter of Intelligence. Comprising twelve sessions convened from September 2025 through May 2027—the Seminar Series is conceived as an open curriculum and a site for collective inquiry. Each seminar is paired with a curated reader on the Matter of Intelligence Are.na channel, grounding the dialogue and opening new paths for exploration.