Jan 28, 2022

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Many accounts of the Arab Spring of 2010-11 view it primarily through a political lens: whatever the underlying grievances, its goals centered around removing autocrats from power and replacing them with more responsive governments. Historian JOEL BEININ argues that in fact the Arab Spring...

May 18, 2021

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As citizens and politicians in many countries argue passionately about how – or whether – national borders should be secured, they often share a similar set of assumptions: that borders are sharp boundaries enclosing distinct political communities, and that the choice of whether...

Feb 16, 2021

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. It is widely known that social media increases political polarization among its users, creating an environment in which mis- and disinformation can spread easily. JAIME SETTLE, author of Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America, argues that what is not so well understood is exactly how...

Jan 29, 2021

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The concept of hurt sentiments first became ensconced in the Indian legal code almost two-hundred years ago, under the influence of the British government official T.B. Macauley. As historian NEETI NAIR explores in a book progress currently in progress, the concept has expanded its reach in...

Jan 3, 2020

Interviewer: MARTHA FARAH. Combining the perspectives of neuroscience and sociology, brothers BRUCE MCEWEN (head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University) and CRAIG MCEWEN (Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Bowdoin College) explore the feedback loops...