The “public turn” in the humanities constellates a moment of critique, identifying literature’s dis-embedded and elite orientations, mostly institutionalized by academics and the reigning world systems. The reified literary space and its ultimate syllabification have completely dematerialized literature, even de-radicalizing postcolonial studies, Black studies, and Dalit studies into dis-embedded academic practices. The questions I pose inquire whether the postcolonial literary enterprise mostly relies on elite “europhonic” expressions of the aesthetic, while ignoring a vast corpus of vernacular and local texts that narrate the struggles and visions of the actual publics and the counterpublics (Fraser 1992 and Warner 2005). The heterodox and subaltern dimensions of the publics—the counterpublics—also expose the conformist and majoritarian character of the publics. This project, therefore, argues for the restoration of the publics in literature while at the same time problematizing the ideological and hegemonic kernel of the category of the publics itself. As the idea of the counterpublics signifies a greater materiality of dissent within the category of the publics, this paper empirically examines the vernacular Sahajiya literature of Bengal (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries), which involves the voices of the Bengali counterpublics, including the subaltern Bauls and the Fakirs who embodied the Sufi-Sahajiya or Sufi-Vaisnab heterodox traditions of vernacular cosmopolitanism.

This is a paper about three problems that public political philosophers are likely to encounter and how some underrecognized forms of public philosophy might help overcome them. After clarifying what I take public political philosophy to be, I present the three problems—the problem of academic overrepresentation, the problem of the critical intellectual, and the problem of novel values. These problems are especially acute for a particular form of public philosophy—namely, writing for a general audience. I describe four alternative models of public political philosophy—the organizing model, the participatory model, the policy model, and the bureaucratic model—and give examples of each. For each model, I describe some of its pros and cons, and in particular how it handles (or does not) the three problems. I conclude with some suggestions about the significance of the discussion for philosophical education.

America’s history and culture wars have escalated at pace since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. And while the President’s second term has been marked by a rapid stream of executive orders and supporting remarks, articles, and statements affecting all aspects of life, it has demonstrated a particular interest in the nation’s cultural assets and has coalesced on the Smithsonian Institution. This article argues that Trump’s attention to the Smithsonian Institution has arisen because 2026 is the 250th anniversary of American independence. It presents archival evidence from the Smithsonian alongside contemporary analysis to demonstrate that the political playbook being utilized by President Trump has an extensive history. To make its point, the article offers a case study of The West as America, an exhibition that was shown in 1991 at the Smithsonian and generated such political controversy that it ended up being the subject of extensive questioning in Congress. The article aims to show the clear similarity between political and public responses to the 1991 exhibition—which was designed to commemorate a national anniversary but occurred in a period of heightened history wars—with conservative attempts to regulate culture in 2025, ahead of “America 250.” It exemplifies how important historical inquiry is in informing decisions and responses to processes of cultural production in the current era.

This article examines how antimicrobial resistance (AMR) policies designed for livestock farming in Europe—and particularly France—have been limited by narrowly defined reduction targets. Although these policies have significantly decreased antibiotic use, they have also upheld a productivist agricultural model that continues to threaten human and animal health and the environment. By aligning AMR mitigation efforts with a biosecurity paradigm that is highly compatible with industrial livestock systems, the reduction in antibiotic use has not yielded all the anticipated benefits. Based on this assessment, we propose three avenues for fostering a just transition relevant to all sectors involved in AMR governance: transcending the dominant “One Global Health” paradigm; shifting power from institutional stakeholders to the public affected by AMR; and reimagining post-antibiotic futures that extend beyond prevailing dystopian narratives.

Since 2017, the world has been talking about the Uyghur people as a “Chinese minority” suffering mass violence at the hands of the Chinese government, which researchers and some countries describe as genocide. While China refutes these accusations and refers to them as “internal affairs,” both China and the rest of the world present the Uyghurs as an “ethnic minority,” thus deliberately denying the Sino-Uyghur colonial relationship that has lasted since the military invasion of East Turkestan in late 1949 by the People’s Liberation Army with the full support of Stalin. As an indigenous people under settler colonialism, the Uyghurs reject this categorization as a “minority,” which contributes to the eradication of their national identity and indigenous sovereignty.