The Conversation

How should we decide what to do?

Written by Lori Gruen, William Griffin Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan University

How many times do we wonder, 'what's the right thing to do'?Ed Yourdon from New York City, USA (Helping the homeless Uploaded by Gary Dee, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Most of us are faced with ethical decisions on a regular basis. Some are relatively minor – perhaps your cousin makes a new recipe and it really doesn’t taste good,...

Why don't STEM majors vote as much as others?

Written by Inger Bergom, Senior Researcher, Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University

college voters

There’s no shortage of talk about the need to get more students to go into STEM majors. But a growing body of research, including our own at the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University, indicates there might also be a need to get more STEM majors to go to the polls.

An analysis that we conducted shows...

Corporate sponsors of Olympians enter the #MeToo fray

Written by George B. Cunningham, Professor of Sport Management, Faculty Affiliate of the Women's and Gender Studies Program, and Director, Laboratory for Diversity in Sport, Texas A&M University

Dick's Sporting Goods presenting Team USA -- including Olympic gymnast Simone Biles -- a check for $236,000.Kevin Wolf/AP Images

Revelations brought to light during the trial of sports doctor Larry Nassar are reverberating.

High-level resignations are piling up at Michigan State University, the physician’s former employer. USA Gymnastics, the...

Artificial intelligence is the weapon of the next Cold War

Written by Jeremy Straub, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, North Dakota State University

With artificial intelligence weapons on both sides, are we in a new cold war?Dim Dimich/Shutterstock.com

It is easy to confuse the current geopolitical situation with that of the 1980s. The United States and Russia each accuse the other of interfering in domestic affairs. Russia has annexed territory over U.S. objections, raising concerns about milit...

Violent past, digital future: Angela Merkel's remarks at Davos

Written by Elizabeth Heineman, Professor of History and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, University of Iowa

Merkel after her address in DavosAP Photo/Markus Schreiber

Two world wars and a genocide have a way of focusing the mind.

Maybe that’s why references to “lessons of the past” are almost ritualistic in addresses such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s to the World Economic Forum. Here’s how Merkel checked that box in...

Macron calls for a 'global contract' at Davos

Written by Joshua Cole, Professor of History, University of Michigan

Macron in Davos on Jan. 24, 2018, where he argued that economic growth wasn't an end in itself.AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

French President Emmanuel Macron’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Jan. 24 called for nation-states and businesses to join in a “true global contract” to invest in human capital, and meet the...

Davos grapples with inequality

Written by Michele Gilman, Venable Professor of Law, University of Baltimore

This year's World Economic Forum in Davos honored musician and philanthropist Elton John for his contributions to upholding 'human dignity.'AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

In accepting an award for his efforts to “uphold human dignity” at the 2018 World Economic Forum, musician and philanthropist Elton John decried economic inequality as...

What Trump’s every-country-for-itself rhetoric gets wrong about Davos

Written by Stephen D. Smith, Director of Shoah Foundation, University of Southern California

There is a disarming and almost touchingly naive belief among the presenters and the government delegations in the cloistered mountain village of Davos that “creating a shared future in a fractured world” – the title of this year’s World Economic Forum – is actually possible.

To the outside world, the panels and...

3 strategies today's activist women share with their foremothers

Written by Liette Gidlow, Associate Professor of U.S. Political and Women's/Gender History, Wayne State University

Members of the Grand Rapids League of Women Voters organized a city get-out-the-vote parade in 1924. Grand Rapids Herald, Sept. 9, 1924. Image courtesy of the Grand Rapids Public Library.

The first year of Donald Trump’s presidency has inspired a fresh wave of women’s movements.

Both one day and one year after his inauguration, millions...

Inside North Korea's literary fiction factory

Written by Meredith Shaw, Ph.D. Candidate in the Politics and International Relations, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

North Korean women work at the cashier table of a bookstore in Pyongyang, North Korea.AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

With colorful rhetoric about dotards and nuclear buttons, North Korean propaganda is attracting attention around the world.

Outside observers can now easily access some of this propaganda by visiting regime-sponsored websites. These have, in...