Author: TheConversation

By Laken Brooks, Doctoral Student of English, University of Florida What do witches have to do with your favorite beer? When I pose this question to students in my American literature and culture classes, I receive stunned silence or nervous laughs. The Sanderson sisters didn’t chug down bottles of Sam Adams in “Hocus Pocus.” But the history of beer points to a not-so-magical legacy of transatlantic slander and gender roles. Up until the 1500s, brewing was primarily women’s work – that is, until a smear campaign accused women brewers of being witches. Much of the iconography we associate with...

By Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John’s University The Pentagon may soon approve leaving some troops deployed to protect the U.S. Capitol from domestic extremist threats, but at a sizable reduction from the estimated 26,000 deployed after the January 6 insurrection. The National Guard is a federally funded reserve force of the U.S. Army or Air Force based in states. These part-time citizen soldiers typically hold civilian jobs but can be activated by state governors or the president to respond to natural disasters, health emergencies or violent protests, or to support...

By Jennifer Martinez-Medina, PhD Candidate/Political Science Instructor, Portland State University Ivan Ocon thought he would be headed back to civilian life as a U.S. citizen after serving the U.S. Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Ocon, who was born in Mexico, came to the United States as a legal permanent resident in 1985 to reunite with his mother. He joined the Army in 1997, and his recruiter assured him that enlisting would make him a U.S. citizen. When Ocon received orders of deployment to Iraq he was given a pre-deployment checklist to help him get his affairs in...

By Luis De la Calle, Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and Associate Professor in Political Science, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas After President Joe Biden took office on January 20, 2021 without any violent incidents, many in the United States and worldwide breathed a sigh of relief. The respite may be brief. The ingredients that led an incensed pro-Trump mob to break into the Capitol and plant pipe bombs at other federal buildings on January 6 remain. Several U.S. security experts say they now consider domestic extremism a greater threat to...

By Felix Koenig, Assistant Professor of Economics, Carnegie Mellon University The US$1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that the House of Representatives passed included a gradual increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. While its chances in the Senate appear slim, the proposal has brought national attention to the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. Supporters argue a higher minimum wage would translate into higher incomes for millions of low-wage employees, such as restaurant waiters, retail salespeople and child care workers, and thereby lift a lot of people out of poverty....