The Conversation

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...

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...