It’s hard to remember a time like this - but illegal immigration used to be an issue we could talk about. With real trade-offs. Is helping refugees part of our DNA? Is bringing lower priced agriculture labor good for American consumers, even if on the back of illegal workers? Are our processes for legal immigration too slow, or the right speed? We’re far past that - now it’s either no human is illegal, or one crime by one illegal immigrant is one too many. The framework has been so tinged with morality that it’s hard to see compromise.

So we’re bringing in two respected experts in the field to see if we can talk about this legibly. Not to relitigate the past, but to look towards the future and discuss what a future could hold, given the reality of today. Next Wednesday, we’re hosting Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute, and Daniel Di Martino of the Manhattan Institute for a dialogue with considerable disagreement on a foundation of mutual respect. Let’s see how we handle the issue of our time. At UNMUTED.

Upcoming UNMUTED Events

Monday, 2/23 (RESCHEDULED - 3/16): An UNMUTED Dialogue: Crime and Punishment and Mamdani (link)

Wednesday, 3/4: An UNMUTED Dialogue: The Path Forward on Immigration (link)

Thursday, 3/12: An UNMUTED x P&T Free Speech Salon I: The War on Protest (link)

Check out all our events here

The events I’ve got my eye on in the next two weeks. Check them out!

Monday, February 23
•6:00 PM – Lewis Mumford Lecture — From Crisis to Proximity: A New Social Contract for Cities
Subject: Urban Studies
Where: Great Hall in Shepard Hall, 160 Convent Ave, New York, NY 10031, Manhattan
Who: The City College of NY
What: Lecture on reimagining the social contract for cities through the lens of proximity as a civic and ecological principle in response to modern urban challenges…I don’t know, I personally don’t talk to my neighbors but….someone else probably has?

•7:00 PM – Celebrate 30 Years of Independent Global News with Democracy Now!
Subject: Democracy !!!!!
Where: Riverside Church
Who: Democracy Now!
What: Celebration of the 30th anniversary of Democracy Now! and independent media at large. Music from Michael Stipe and activists and scholars like Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, and others. Actually badass.

🗓 Tuesday, February 24
•6:00 PM – Human Rights Series: Identity Politics vs. Citizenship
Subject: Human Rights, Illegal Immigration
Where: La Maison Française NYU, New York, NY
Who: La Maison Française NYU
What: A session exploring tensions and intersections between identity politics and citizenship as part of a human rights series. As you can tell by the “human right’s framing” this is going to be a liberal leaning event.

•5:00 PM – Poetry Book Discussion: ‘Zong!’ by Marlene Nourbese Philip
Subject: Law and art
Where: Community Room, LL2, Mulberry Street Library
Who: New York Public Library
What: A discussion on Marlene Nourbese Philip’s poem, which explores themes of law and the transatlantic slave trade… Actually kinda interesting, legal poetry, poetry of law?

🗓 Wednesday, February 25
•6:00 PM – NYC Young Lawyer Social with the Solicitor General of Pennsylvania
Subject: Law and Policy
Where: Wheeltapper Pub, 141 E 44th St, New York City, NY 10017 
Who: America 250, the Federalist Society
What: Join the Federalist Society in a social networking event with the Solicitor General of PA, Stephen Raiola.

•6:00 PM – Hegel 13/13 with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Subject: Philosophy and Social Perspective
Where: Columbia University 
Who: The Center for Contemporary Critical Thought
What: Lecture connecting Hegelian philosophy with postcolonial, literary, and critical theory perspectives… OK OK I know, but I already put the other two in this series, so I thought I would keep it going (If you're over it, just send me a review 🙂 )

🗓 Thursday, February 26
•6:00 PM – Black History Month Book Talk — A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power
Subject: Politics
Where: 47-49 East 65th St, Manhattan
Who: The City University of New York  (two in one week, but these are great)
What: Book talk hosted by CNN host Abby Phillip on exploring Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns and their impact on Black political power in the United States… see told you it was cool!

•6:30 PM – Alone Together: Effects of Headphone Culture on Politics
Subject: Sociology and Politics
Where: Register for event details
Who: Lectures on Tap
What: A lecture by Prof. Lindsey Cormack exploring how personal technology, or rather individual isolation, affects political engagement. This is such an important topic, I would love to go to this one.

•6:30 PM – Conversation with Rob Henderson
Subject: Social Debate
Where: 135 Watts St, New York, NY 10013
Who: Manhattan Institute
What:  A relaxed, off-the-record, Q&A and discussion with Rob Henderson, a Manhatten Institute fellow and author of the best-selling author of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class, covering the psychology of today's political debates… Manhattan Institute are friends of UNMUTED, totally check this out.

🗓 Friday, February 27
•6:30 PM – Global Shocks and the Future of Food System Resilience
Subject: Consumerism and Global Challenges
Where: Serendipity Labs, Grand Central, NYC
Who: 1014
What: A discussion with Thomas Pogge (Yale University) and Jonas Jägermeyr (Columbia University) on the vulnerability of interconnected food systems due to global shocks.

🗓 Saturday, February 28

•4:00 PM – VESSELS: Latin American Revolutionary Cinema with Ana Begoña Armengod
Subject: History, Contemporary Thought, and Art
Where: Strother School of Radical Attention (Wut…)
Who: Attensity!
What: A screening of Tercer Cine films followed by an open discussion on revolutionary movements and media

🗓 Sunday, March 1

None interesting!

Monday, March 2
•4:30 PM – An Archaeology of Plastics
Subject: Environmental Archaeology
Where: The New York Academy of Sciences, 115 Broadway, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10006
Who: New York Academy of Sciences Anthropology Section
What: Distinguished Lecture Series featuring Pamela Geller, bioarcheologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Miami, examining the lifecycle of plastic artifacts and arguing for plastics as the catalyst of a Synthetic Revolution. New York Academy of Sciences is a partner for an upcoming event with Jack Schlossberg, so gotta rep.

•6:00 PM – Handwriting the Constitution
Subject: Historical Perspectives
Where: Old Stone House of Brooklyn
Who: Morgan O’Hara
What: An interactive art workshop that encourages people to take human rights into consideration through handwriting important documents of the past. If you lean right, I will pay you $5 to go to this and report back.

•6:30 PM – A Nation In Conversation
Subject: Politics and Society
Where: The Robert H. Smith Auditorium at The New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024
Who: The New York Historical
What: A timely discussion of race, democracy, and historical perspectives with Professor Heather Cox Richardson and Professor of African Studies at Princeton University, Khalil Gibran Muhammad.

🗓 Tuesday, March 3
•4:00 PM – Economics Seminar: Nikolaos Rodousakis
Subject: Economics 
Where: Wolff Conference Room 1103, The New School 
Who: The New School 
What: A political economic presentation of new dynamic research by Ph.d Nikolaos Rodousakis, a research fellow at the Centre of Planning and Economic Research. Seems very theoretical and heady, if you're into that, worth a shot. 

•6:30 PM – #MeToo and the Politics of Transnational Feminism
Subject: Politics and Culture 
Where: 20 Cooper Sq, New York, NY
Who: Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, NYU
What: A panel discussion and book talk covering the global context of the feminist movement. In law school, talks with titles this abstract tended to be really boring. But maybe, just maybe, I’m wrong.

🗓 Wednesday, March 4
•6:00 PM – The Long War on Iran
Subject: US-Iran Relations
Where: 40 Loisaida Avenue, New York, NY 10009
Who: OR Books
What: Book launch with author Behrooz Ghamari and Narges Bajoghli examining the decades-long standoff between the United States and Iran, exploring misunderstandings and conflicting ambitions.

•6:00 PM – Supply Side Harm Reduction: Public Health Interventions in Drug Markets
Subject: Public Health
Where: Casa Hispanica, 612 West 116th Street, New York, NY 10027
Who: The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities
What: Discussion exploring public health interventions in drug markets and incorporating people who sell drugs into harm reduction research and intervention…Ed for real.

•6:30 PM – Strategies for a New Era of Policing and Public Safety in NYC
Subject: Policing Reform
Where: Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Who: GC Public Programs
What: Panel of leading scholars and practitioners examining cutting-edge research on improving public safety through police-community interactions, non-police responses to mental health emergencies, and procedural justice.

•6:30 PM – Soho Forum Debate: Terence Kealey vs. Jeffrey Flier
Subject: NIH Policy
Where: The Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 1001
Who: The Soho Forum
What: Debate on the resolution: The National Institutes of Health should be abolished. We actually looked into hosting Jeffrey Flier for an upcoming trust in science event…..if anyone was planning to go to this - and wants to see if they can recruit Flier, please text me at 978 302 5849

🗓 Thursday, March 5
•6:00 PM – Book Launch: Liquid Handcuffs: Policing & Punishment in Methadone Clinics
Subject: Public Health
Where: The People's Forum, 320 West 37th Street, New York, NY 10018
Who: Methadone Clinic Abolition Collective
What: Expert panel on how the methadone clinic system oppresses people who take methadone and the case for clinic abolition to save lives….you’re probably either going to hate this or love this, entirely based on your politics.

•7:00 PM – Diversity Vs. Unity: In a nation of immigrants, what makes us ‘one people’?
Subject: Political discourse 
Where: Unitarian Universalist Society
Who: Braver Angels 
What: A conversation about multiculturalism, diversity, and unity as a shared moral framework and value.

🗓 Friday, March 6
•3:00 PM – March Political Madness
Subject: local government 
Where: John Thompson Jr. Court @ Nike, 855 Sixth Ave, NYC 
Who: City and State New York 
What: A basketball tournament where New York’s Political leaders will be pitted against one another, like Super Mario basketball… or actual basketball 

•6:00 PM – Black Study(ies) at Columbia University 2026 Zora Neale Hurston Lecture
Subject: Black Literature
Where: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture - New York Public Library, 515
Who: African American & African Diaspora Studies - Columbia U
What: Jamaica Kincaid, Antiguian-American novelist and essayist, and Edwidge Danticat, Haitian-American novelist and short story writer, in conversation as part of the annual Zora Neale Hurston Lecture honoring Black intellectual tradition.

🗓 Saturday, March 7
•11:00 AM – Faith, Ethics & Artificial Intelligence
Subject: AI Ethics
Where: Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights, 254 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Who: Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights
What:  Lecture with Dr. Isaac B. Sharp exploring what Christian ethics have to say about the promises and pitfalls of AI, engaging questions of justice, agency, and moral responsibility.

•1:00 PM – Through Their Hands: Women's Work and Daily Life in Early New York
Subject: Women's History
Where: The Van Cortlandt House Museum, 6036 Broadway, Van Cortlandt Park, The Bronx, NY 10471
Who: Van Cortlandt House Museum
What: Guided tour exploring the lives of women in New York from the 17th to the 19th centuries using objects from the museum's collection and historic domestic spaces.

🗓 Sunday, March 8
•3:00 PM – Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement
Subject: Legal 
Where: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe 
Who: Housing Works Bookstore 
What: A book talk with authors Deborah Zalesne and Christopher Blackwell, who question the ethics of solitary confinement and possible alternatives, like many of the events this week, I feel like this could go either way. Report back if it's decent.

•3:00 PM – Winter Salon
Subject: Conservative/ Social
Where: Event Location Information Upon Registration
Who: New York Young Republican Club
What: The 2nd annual NYRRC winter salon featuring conservative musical acts, culture, and discussions. If you are a fellow patron of the arts and a conservative, this is up your alley.

Show up, think deeper, and as always, stay Unmuted!

The Unmuted Team