The Conversation

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...

Does America have a caste system?

Written by Subramanian Shankar, Professor of English (Postoclonial Literature and Creative Writing), University of Hawaii

In the United States, inequality tends to be framed as an issue of either class, race or both. Consider, for example, criticism that Republicans’ new tax plan is a weapon of “class warfare,” or accusations that the recent U.S. government shutdown was racist.

As an India-born novelist and scholar who teaches in the United States,...

Can mirrors boost solar panel output - and help overcome Trump's tariffs?

Written by Joshua M. Pearce, Professor, Michigan Technological University

Now that panel costs in U.S. will go up, will reflectors make a comeback?Joshua M. Pearce, CC BY-SA

Falling costs for solar power have led to an explosive growth in residential, commercial and utility-scale solar use over the past decade. The levelized cost of solar electricity using imported solar panels – that is, the solar electricity...

The comeback and dangers of the drug GHB

Written by Joseph Palamar, Associate Professor of Population Health, New York University Langone Medical Center

The drug GHB gained notoriety during raves decades ago, but it is resurfacing again. Anthony Mooney/Shutterstock.com

A highly potent drug called GHB is making a comeback in nightlife scenes, along with overdoses and even death. On Jan. 23, 2018, “Storm Chaser” star Joel Taylor died on a cruise ship. Celebrity news site TMZ reported that...

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin's weak-dollar myopia is dangerous

Written by Benjamin J. Cohen, Professor of International Political Economy, University of California, Santa Barbara

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin walks through the snow at Davos. AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

Breaking with long-standing tradition, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin endorsed the weakening of the dollar as “good” for the United States.

Speaking during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 24, Mnuchin...

Macron's pledge to wipe out coal is just as meaningless as Trump's plan to revive it

Written by Jay L. Zagorsky, Economist and Research Scientist, The Ohio State University

Emmanuel Macron, president of France, gestures during a special address in Davos, Switzerland. AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

In a speech at the 2018 World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, French President Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to “make France a model in the fight against climate change” and promised to shut all coal-fired...

Fossil jawbone from Israel is the oldest modern human found outside Africa

Written by Rolf Quam, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Fossilized teeth from a modern human who lived in Israel close to 200,000 years ago.Israel Hershkovitz, Tel Aviv University, CC BY-ND

New fossil finds over the past few years have been forcing anthropologists to reexamine our evolutionary path to becoming human. Now the earliest modern human fossil ever found outside the continent of Africa is...