Interview Book Club Pick: Viral Justice October 03, 2022 Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Read More
Interview Young, Gifted and Diverse: Q&A with the authors August 22, 2022 Despite their diversity, Black Americans have long been studied as a uniformly disadvantaged group. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Work Matters August 17, 2022 Low-wage workers make up the largest group of employed parents in the United States, yet scant attention has been given to their experiences as new mothers and fathers. Work Matters brings the unique stories of these diverse individuals to light. Read More
Essay Why work matters August 09, 2022 The United States is one of the most unfriendly places in the world to have a child, especially for low-wage, working parents. To date, our current policy initiatives for working families focus on giving parents time away from work to cope with family responsibilities, with policies such as parental leave, sick time, and scheduling flexibility. Read More
Interview Office hours with Karen Levy July 26, 2022 I am delighted to announce Office Hours, a new Ideas feature that we will share every other month. I spend quite a bit of time talking to authors about recent research—and eventually, we share the end result with you, in the form of a book. Read More
Essay The millennial generation housing calamity July 20, 2022 No single issue has catalyzed younger adults more than housing. Wealthier millennials cannot buy a home with the same ease their parents did, middle class millennials pay tremendous rents to live in cities with good economic opportunities, and the poor of the same cohort experience rampant housing insecurity: couch surfing, living in their cars, and, most disturbingly, sleeping in tent colonies or right on the pavement of cities like Los Angeles and New York. Read More
Interview Margaret Cohen on The Underwater Eye April 12, 2022 In The Underwater Eye, Margaret Cohen tells the fascinating story of how the development of modern diving equipment and movie camera technology has allowed documentary and narrative filmmakers to take human vision into the depths, creating new imagery of the seas and the underwater realm, and expanding the scope of popular imagination. Read More
Podcast Does Skill Make Us Human? March 30, 2022 Skill—specifically the distinction between the “skilled” and “unskilled”—is generally defined as a measure of ability and training, but Does Skill Make Us Human? shows instead that skill distinctions are used to limit freedom, narrow political rights, and even deny access to imagination and desire. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Work Pray Code March 25, 2022 We all want our jobs to be meaningful and fulfilling. Work Pray Code reveals what can happen when work becomes religion, and when the workplace becomes the institution that shapes our souls. Read More
Interview Carolyn Chen on Work Pray Code March 16, 2022 Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship, blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life. Read More
Video Joseph Ewoodzie Jr.: “The neighborhood is no longer what it used to be” February 09, 2022 “The neighborhood is no longer what it used to be. The experience of blackness is not either.” Joseph C. Ewoodzie Jr. explains how talking to Jacksonians about their food choices helped him to understand more about their changing racial and cultural identities. Read More
Podcast Getting Something to Eat in Jackson February 06, 2022 Getting Something to Eat in Jackson uses food—what people eat and how—to explore the interaction of race and class in the lives of African Americans in the contemporary urban South. Read More
Essay Skill, power, and control in the world of Qatar’s migrant workers January 27, 2022 On the shoreline of Doha, Qatar, a tacky countdown clock, an enormous fuchsia hourglass cast in acrylic and sponsored by the luxury watchmaker Hublot, flashes the days, minutes, and seconds until the first ball of the 2022 FIFA World Cup is kicked at 6pm on November 21, 2022. Read More
Podcast The January 6th Capitol insurrection one year on January 06, 2022 Hate crimes. Misinformation and conspiracy theories. Foiled white-supremacist plots. The signs of growing far-right extremism are all around us, and communities across America and around the globe are struggling to understand how so many people are being radicalized and why they are increasingly attracted to violent movements. Read More
Video Cynthia Miller-Idriss on the anniversary of the January 6th Capitol attack January 05, 2022 The 2021 attack on the Capitol changed the face of the United States. As the events of January 6th unfolded they were televised across the world, allowing a global audience to experience a violent response to an election held in what was once considered the world’s foremost democracy. Read More
