Author: TheConversation

By Cathy Schlund-Vials, Professor of English and Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut In America’s imagination, the Vietnam War is not so much celebrated as it is assiduously contemplated. This inward-looking approach is reflected in films like “The Deer Hunter” and “Apocalypse Now,” best-selling novels and popular memoirs that dwell on the psychological impact of the war. Was the war worth the cost, human and otherwise? Was it a winnable war or doomed from the outset? What are its lessons and legacies? These questions also underpin the Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns. But many forget that before the...

By Daniel Genkins, Postdoctoral Fellow in History, Vanderbilt University Paper documents are still priceless records of the past, even in a digital world. Primary sources stored in local archives throughout Latin America, for example, describe a centuries-old multiethnic society grappling with questions of race, class and religion. However, paper archives are vulnerable to flooding, humidity, insects, and rodents, among other threats. Political instability can cut off money used to maintain archives and institutional neglect can transform precious records into moldy rubbish. Working closely with colleagues from around the world, I build digital archives and specialized tools that help us...

By Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis University Congregational membership in the United States is slowly declining. Data from the General Social Survey show that 17 percent of Americans attended a religious gathering weekly in the 1990s. By 2010, this number had dropped to 11 percent. These changes spark new questions about how people’s personal religious and spiritual beliefs are changing. They also raise questions about where, if at all, people experience the sacred. With architectural historian Alice Friedman and photographer Randall Armor, I located and documented more than 50 hidden sacred spaces...

By Arash Javanbakht, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University Mental health is often used in political discourse and arguments, especially pertaining to who legitimately suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recently when U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D.MN), herself a Somalian refugee who had spent years in a refugee camp in Kenya, said: “Every time I hear conversations around war, I find myself being stricken with PTSD.” U.S. Representative Jim Banks (R. IN), a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, found these comments “offensive to our nation’s veterans who really do have PTSD.” As an expert in research and...

By Jaymes Pyne, Quantitative Research Associate, Stanford University; and Eric Grodsky, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison When seeking graduate and professional degrees, African Americans take on over 50% more debt than white students. On the upside, African Americans also see a bigger payoff to earning such degrees. Whether or not that payoff is enough to make up for the additional debt burden is unclear. These are some key takeaways from a study we released in January 2020 in the journal Sociology of Education that examined graduate school debt. We are researchers who study issues of inequality and disadvantage in education....

By JD Swerzenski, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Donald T. Tomaskovic-Devey, Professor of Sociology; Director, Center for Employment Equity, University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Eric Hoyt, Research Director of the Center for Employment Equity, University of Massachusetts Amherst Many organizations have prioritized workplace equality and access to high-paying, executive level jobs for minority groups in recent years. Several 2020 presidential candidates are putting forward plans to increase minority executive positions by diversifing corporate boards, punishing companies with poor diversity track records and increasing funding for minority-led business institutions. However, according to our own 2019 analysis, white...