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聽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鈥攕pecifically the distinction between the 鈥渟killed鈥� and 鈥渦nskilled鈥濃�攊s generally defined as a measure of ability and training, but聽Does Skill Make Us Human?聽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 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 Skill, power, and control in the world of Qatar鈥檚 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.聽 Read More
Video PUP Speaks: 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鈥檚 foremost democracy. Read More
Interview Shannon Lee Dawdy on American Afterlives October 25, 2021 Death in the United States is undergoing a quiet revolution. You can have your body frozen, dissected, composted, dissolved, or tanned. Read More
Essay Poverty, pandemic, and peace of mind October 14, 2021 When COVID-19 spread around the world, I was living in the south of France, but my mind was in the U.S. south. Read More
Interview Book Club Pick: Very Important People October 04, 2021 Million-dollar birthday parties, megayachts on the French Riviera, and $40,000 bottles of champagne. In today鈥檚 New Gilded Age, the world鈥檚 moneyed classes have taken conspicuous consumption to new extremes. Read More
Essay A look inside Very Important People July 28, 2021 A sociologist and former fashion model takes readers inside the elite global party circuit of 鈥渕odels and bottles鈥� to reveal how beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men. Read More
Interview Book Club Pick: Uneasy Street July 01, 2021 This month鈥檚 Book Club Pick is Uneasy Street by Rachel Sherman. This is an excellent non-fiction summer book club selection for readers who are curious about the lives of the 1%. Read More
