October 24: Farah Godrej, University of California - Riverside (virtual)

October 31: Noah Schouela, University of Chicago

November 2: Global Trade in the Maoist Era - Shi Yuanxie

October 25: “Medical Landscapes of the Spanish and Mexican Inquisitions” - Daria Berman, Washington University in St. Louis

October 30: Renaud Morieux, University of Cambridge

October 31: “‘It’s Distant But It’s Close:’ Paradoxes and Possibilities of Mothering While Incarcerated” Sheila Shankar

October 25: “Reassessing the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s ‘Seated Goddess with a Child’” - Charles Wilson

November 1: “Social distancing and reclaiming junk: Renegotiating possessibility in Covid-era Beijing” - Hanna Pickwell

October 26: Since Time Immemorial: Native Custom and Law in Colonial Mexico - Yanna Yannakakis, Emory University *Special Time & Location 12 - 2:30pm SSRB 224

November 2: Rights to Her Labor: Women workers on Mexico’s southeastern railroads

October 25: “Quick eels in his codpiece”: The Embodiment of Non-Normative Manhood and Disability in Early Modern England - Anna Conner & Rachel Tils

October 26: A “Universal Struggle for Life”? A Comparative Study of the Regional Reception of Darwinism Among Religious Thinkers - Sacha Allen

November 2: Creepy Creepers: Planty Animacy in the Ecogothic Landscape - Paul Manning, Trent University

Thursdays 3:30 - 5pm in Pick Hall 506 & Zoom

October 26: “When Economic Value Backfires: Domestic Opposition to Resource-Rich Territory” - Soyoung Lee, Yale University

November 2: Jenna Gibson

A collaboration between the Oxford Internet Institute and WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Fairwork has sought to explore the realities faced by personnel in the gig economy. The US team is led by Professor of Law, Veena Dubal, and postdoctoral fellow Mishal Khan, at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Dr. Khan is a UChicago alum, receiving her PhD in sociology where she was also a CISSR 2018-19 Rudolph Field Research Fellow. The project developed a rating system that scores companies out of 10 on account of five points: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation. The US report revealed that these platforms are below global standards, with the highest score (achieved by only three of the assessed companies) being a mere 2/10. Fairwork has examined apps in nearly 40 countries across its US and Oxford teams, along with international partners. As the project has endured, these scores have been tracked over time, allowing for the investigation of changing conditions and further analysis can take place.

Read the full write-up by Jill Habig, Veena Dubal, and Mishal Khan in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Austin Carson, an Associate Professor of Political Science and CISSR 2019-20 Research Fellow was interviewed by Elizabeth Sanders, Professor at Georgetown University for the political science blog Good Authority on October 12^th regarding the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the interview, Prof. Carson and Prof. Sanders talk about the negotiations going on behind the scenes in this latest phase of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Prof. Carson discusses the probability of the war’s expansion into Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon to morph into being a semi-proxy due to existing tensions between Iran and the U.S. He argues that such a snowballing of conflict is often prevented by what he calls “the collusive enterprise” of behind-closed-doors diplomacy, however, he claims that while negotiating happens  backstage that serve to quell violence, there can be simultaneous opening up of the conflict to other areas. To keep wars within a limited zone and contain destruction, Prof. Carson argues it is likely that the states will utilize back channels and he argues these are as real and as legitimate a form of diplomacy as the more widely publicized ones. Prof. Carson’s previous books titled Secret Wars and Secrets in Global Governance, considers secrecy, the role of intelligence, as well as the role of covert conflict and negotiations in the global system. Read the full interview here.

The 2023 Rachel Carson Prize is Michele Friedner (Comparative Human Development) for her book Sensory Futures: Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures in India

Michele Ilana Friender, Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development and CISSR Board Member received the 2023 Carson Prize for her book Sensory Futures: Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures in India. Prof. Friedner’s book delves deep into the multidimensional nature of the social experience of disability, showing through ethnographic studies how families and children navigate the social and technological landscape of cochlear implants in India. The Society for Social Studies of Science, announced the award for Sensory Futures and praised it saying:

Sensory Futures is available open access through the University of Minnesota Press which was made possible from a grant through the CISSR Book & Monograph Enhancement Awards.

John P. McCormick's German translation of Reading Machiavelli profiled in Süddeutsch Zeitung

Professor of Political Science, John P. McCormick, is a political theorist who wrote Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspect Engagements, and the Virtue of Populist Politics which was published by Princeton University Press in 2018. German publisher, Suhrkamp, recently released the German translation of his book, which was funded in part through the CISSR Book & Monograph Enhacnement Awards. The article in Süddeutsch Zeitung highlights the main arguments Prof. McCormick makes in the book, comparing pre-modern vs. modern forms of populism and draws upon the rise and fall of populist leaders. In Reading Machiavelli, Dr. McCormick argues that Machiavelli assigns greater agency to the body politic, or, more specifically, to people who are not a part of the nobility, allowing for reconsideration of historical trajectory of populism. In other words, Machiavelli proposes an institutionalization of the public will when the elected officials and representatives fall short of serving the public interest. Drawing upon recent US events, the Süddeutsch Zeitung piece whether Trump represents a Machiavellian figure and what the outcome of Trump’s presidency means for democratic norms in the US and worldwide. Read the piece in German here.