How Do We Find Connection in the Public Square?

On Forming Bonds Over Bars, Benches, Books, and Breakfast

The public square is the meeting ground where people make society happen. In these spaces, physical or metaphorical or digital, we work through our shared dramas and map our collective hopes. Ideally, the public square provides room to solve the problems we face. It is also where new, thorny issues often arise.

This “Up for Discussion” is part of Zócalo’s editorial and events series spotlighting the ideas, places, and questions that have shaped the public square Zócalo has created over the past 20 years.

Here, our contributors consider the rich building blocks of the …

A ‘Tragedy and a Miracle’ in the Andes

Society of the Snow Revisits a 1972 Plane Crash—And Helps Explain Why It Remains Ingrained in the Uruguayan National Memory

At the beginning of Society of the Snow, Spain’s entry for Best International Feature Film for the upcoming Academy Awards, there is a scene in a Catholic church in Montevideo, …

How the Memory of a Handshake Helps Put Tragedy in Perspective

The Overwhelming Stream of Depressing News From Around the Globe Makes Personal Connections Even More Meaningful

After mass shootings and other random acts of violence, the media responds in patterns all too familiar—heart-breaking accounts of the loss, a search to understand why (as if that answer …

Help, I’m Addicted to ‘Candy Crush Saga’!

We Can Shop, Game, and Ogle Vacation Pictures Online, But How Can the Internet Help Us Connect Better to Each Other?

The Internet has become a part of much of our daily lives—we can pay bills through online banking, comment on a friend’s vacation picture on Facebook, look at Google Maps’ …