Maxwell School News and Commentary

Heather Law Pezzarossi, assistant professor of anthropology, argues that our contemporary arguments over cultural appropriation are misapplied to Louisa Keyser’s baskets. “Authenticity is a completely Western, American fixation we’ve mapped onto this concept of indigeneity to make it part of an American past, not an American future,” she says.

“The UAW…strike action is ultimately trying to realize one of the Biden Administration’s core policy goals and political selling points: you can have good, family-sustaining union jobs alongside climate action. The problem is the automakers see EV production as a way to trim labor costs and shift production to non-union plants,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

“I think about academics having to write grants all the time,” says Aaron Benanav, assistant professor of sociology, as an example. Those can be formulaic and would take far less time with the help of a machine. In programming, it’s helping engineers “write up basic outlines of code or sometimes like whole sections of code,” he says. 

"Things are going nowhere for Ukraine," says Sean McFate, adjunct professor in Maxwell's Washington Programs. "Wars are no longer won like World War II by taking the enemy’s land, killing their troops and flying your flag over their capital."

"One initial impetus for the book was my desire to bring geography’s concepts and insights into better conversation with topics in Middle East area studies," says Timur Hammond, assistant professor of geography and the environment. "Although over a decade has passed since I started research on this topic, expanding the disciplinary connections between geography and Middle East area studies continues to be a core goal."

Prema Kurien, professor of sociology, says there is a logical reason why immigrant groups exhibit higher rates of religiosity. “Immigration and relocation from a familiar context to something completely unfamiliar is a theologizing experience,” Kurien says. “It raises existential questions—things that people don’t think about when they are in their home country with a familiar community.”

“There are enough moderate Republicans in the House, along with Democrats in the House, to pass a spending bill out of the House that they know the Senate Democrats, which control the Senate, would agree to,” says Chris Faricy, associate professor of political science. “But in doing that, you risk a backlash from the Freedom Caucus.”

Jacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and the environment, says the grasses provided “fine fuels that ignite easily” due to their high surface area-to-volume ratio, dense growth patterns and height.

Some colors can affect divers’ physical and mental health, says Kyrstin Mallon Andrews, assistant professor of anthropology. For instance, because yellow water clouds the water’s surface, the fishermen must dive continually to see fish, an exhausting process. Yellow water also causes skin rashes and debilitating ear infections, along with “sort of generalized angst,” she says.

Talk of a BRICS common currency is “really a reflection of a desire among some segments of the world to have some counterweight to the U.S., the U.S. economy, the dollar,” says Daniel McDowell, associate professor of political science. But “I think most of this is just in fantasy land, because I don’t see any world in which it is really going to emerge in the way some people might hope.”