Essay A spacetime interval聽 March 14, 2022 Albert Einstein is dead. Bohemia, too, no longer exists. They have ascended to the realm of myths and legends, become words to conjure with鈥攜et they are not, in general, invoked together. Read More
Podcast So Simple a Beginning March 11, 2022 The form and function of a sprinting cheetah are quite unlike those of a rooted tree. A human being is very different from a bacterium or a zebra. Read More
Essay Pi Day March 11, 2022 As every mathematician knows, 3.14 is only a rough approximation to 蟺, one that fails to reveal its most fascinating properties, of being irrational and in fact transcendental. Read More
Reading List A playlist for Waterloo Sunrise March 07, 2022 There are cultural moments that implant themselves in our shared consciousness, impacting how we discuss or recall those times. If someone were to mention the early aughts, for example, chances are we could all point to an event, a celebrity, a song that represents the entire era, not just for one person, but for us all. Read More
Essay Facebook鈥檚 dark design: It鈥檚 not just the algorithms February 25, 2022 In the midst of our current debate about Facebook, have we ignored a core issue? Public scrutiny has focused almost entirely on the company and its practices. Read More
Essay Power, racism, and the role of the university February 23, 2022 In October 2020, I sat down with historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad for an event about my book, The Campus Color Line. It was a lively conversation, ranging from discussions about reparations in higher education to questioning who should lead U.S. colleges and universities. Read More
Podcast American Shtetl February 17, 2022 Settled in the mid-1970s by a small contingent of Hasidic families, Kiryas Joel is an American town with few parallels in Jewish history鈥攂ut many precedents among religious communities in the United States. Read More
Essay The physicality of life February 15, 2022 DNA is stuff: physical, tangible, material. We all know this; we can even picture in our minds its famous double helical form. Read More
Interview Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers on American Shtetl February 10, 2022 Settled in the mid-1970s by a small contingent of Hasidic families, Kiryas Joel is an American town with few parallels in Jewish history鈥攂ut many precedents among religious communities in the United States. Read More
Video PUP Speaks: 鈥淭he neighborhood is no longer what it used to be鈥� February 09, 2022 鈥淭he neighborhood is no longer what it used to be. The experience of blackness is not either.鈥� 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鈥攚hat people eat and how鈥攖o explore the interaction of race and class in the lives of African Americans in the contemporary urban South. Read More
Essay A look inside The War That Doesn鈥檛 Say Its Name February 03, 2022 In early 2008, I set up my research base at the VIP hotel in downtown Goma, a trade hub in the eastern Congo nestled between the Nyiragongo Volcano and the shores of Lake Kivu. Read More
Interview Zeynep Pamuk on Politics and Expertise January 31, 2022 Our ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and climate change to artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, depends on knowledge provided by scientists and other experts. Read More
Essay Arnold Weinstein on The Lives of Literature January 29, 2022 The Lives of Literature: Reading, Teaching, Knowing as the subtitle suggests, is after large game: why we go to literature, what its value might be in a world increasingly devoted to 鈥渋nformation,鈥� and what a career in teaching has taught me, as well as my students. Read More
Podcast Grief: A Philosophical Guide January 28, 2022 Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us鈥攁s universal as it is painful鈥攊s central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. Read More
