Arts & Humanities
Overturning oppression in the US child welfare system
In the US there’s a growing call from academics and advocates with significant experience in the country’s child welfare system for fundamental reform. Professors Lisa Merkel-Holguin and Ida Drury, colleagues from the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado, and a national advocate, have catalogued multiple stages within the current […]
The past that we know and the past that was: Exploring Constructed Past Theory
How do we come to know the past? Constructed Past Theory (CPT) claims that the past, as we understand it, is not what existed or happened but is the product of cognitive processes. By using concepts and methods from semiotics, archival science, and computer science, researchers are beginning to understand those processes. Dr Kenneth Thibodeau, a researcher with the InterPARES […]
Taste and place: How cuisine affects geographical identity
Junfan Lin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sun Yat-sen University, China. His research interests lie in Chinese cuisine and culinary tourism, where he has helped to rethink Chinese food through a geographical lens. In his research paper, Taste and place of Nanxiong cuisine in South China, he specifically explores the identity of the city, Nanxiong. Through interviews and observation, […]
What constitutes optimal leisure?
Large sections of our society have had an increasing amount of time on their hands outside of work since the inception of the industrial age. People have developed multiple ways of occupying this time through varied and multifaceted leisure activities. These activities have been extensively researched and documented in recent decades, and Professor Robert Stebbins at the University of Calgary […]
Smooth sailing: Wind, water, and Viking voyages
Misconceptions about the Vikings are more numerous than facts, one being their portrayal as sailors blindly battling through cold, fog, wind, and turbulence. Through scientific research and their own voyage on the (not so) high seas, Professor William Doolittle (University of Texas) and Professor Stephen Stadler (Oklahoma State University) have dispelled this myth. Summertime winds and currents would not have […]
From what’s wrong to what’s strong: A guide to community-driven development
There are four main modes of social change: to, for, with, and by. While there is a place for all four within community and economic development, avoiding the pitfalls of traditional ‘aid’ requires a well-delineated approach. As the Managing Director of Nurture Development and a faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute at DePaul University, Cormac Russell is […]
Philosophy and Critical Theory: Shining a light on Saladdin Ahmed’s research
Saladdin Ahmed is a philosopher and critical theorist. His works focus on the philosophy of resistance, antifascism, totalitarianism, and political space. For the last three years, he has been teaching political theory, international relations, and comparative politics at Union College in Schenectady, New York. During that time, he has published, among other works, a book Totalitarian Space and the Destruction […]
Cinematic cruising: Reel and real spaces between imagination and experience
What do going on a cruise and visiting the cinema have in common? Professor Anton Escher, Dr Marie Karner and Helena Rapp, at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, believe these two seemingly different activities share a lot in common. Delving into an area of study they feel has been overlooked until now, they explain how film representations affect a cruise passenger’s […]
Digital Assyriology: Using artificial intelligence to unlock an ancient lingua franca
The ancient writing system of cuneiform was used to record millennia of human history, but relatively few of the hundreds of thousands of known cuneiform texts have yet been translated and made available to researchers and the public alike. The Babylonian Engine project, led by Dr Shai Gordin of Ariel University, Israel, has developed two tools – Atrahasis and Akkademia […]
Is the Corona pandemic a gateway to global surveillance?
For the first time in human history, digital surveillance technologies have allowed governments around the world to monitor almost everyone, almost everywhere, almost all the time. The public has largely accepted such measures as necessary in the fight against the Coronavirus. But are we right to passively accept the abandonment of our right to privacy – a fundamental human right […]