The Conversation

Religious tourism has been hit hard in the pandemic as sites close and pilgrimages are put on hold

Written by Faizan Ali, Assistant Professor of Hospitality and Tourism, University of South Florida

Only a handful of tourists at the usually busy St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

Religious tourism is among the oldest forms of planned travel and to this day remains a huge industry.

About 300 to 330 million tourists visit the world’s key religious sites every year, according to a 2017 estimate. Some 600...

FDA is departing from long-standing procedures to deal with public health crises, and this may foreshadow problems for COVID-19 vaccines

Written by Ana Santos Rutschman, Assistant Professor of Law, Saint Louis University

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, right, and President Trump at a Coronavirus Task Force meeting March 19, 2020.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn announced that the FDA had issued emergency use authorization for investigational convalescent plasma...

The white supremacist origins of modern marriage advice

Written by Jane Ward, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside

At the turn of the 20th century, marriage was assumed to be an exercise in mutual misery.Getty Images

When I was conducting research for my new book on the destructive aspects of modern heterosexual relationships, I started looking into the archives of early 20th-century books about courtship and marriage written by physicians and sexologists.

In...

Trump's foreign policy is still 'America First' – what does that mean, exactly?

Written by Klaus W. Larres, Richard M. Krasno Distinguished Professor; Adjunct Professor of the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

As president, Trump has cultivated close relations with autocratic leaders while distancing the U.S. from its traditional allies in Europe and Asia. Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images

At the Republican National Convention, supporters of President Trump’s reelection bid have celebrated his attempts to build a Mexico border...

Abolishing child labor took the specter of 'white slavery' and the job market's near collapse during the Great Depression

Written by Betsy Wood, Instructor of American History, Hudson County Community College

These boys working in a Georgia cotton mill were photographed in 1909. Lewis Hine/The National Child Labor Committee Collection via Library of Congress

Today, U.S. laws and regulations bar kids under the age of 14 from working in most industries. Children under 17 may not work more than three hours on school days, for example.

Ever wonder where...

Jerry Falwell Jr. will leave behind a very different legacy from his influential father

Written by Richard Flory, Senior Director of Research and Evaluation, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Jerry Falwell Jr., right, during commencement ceremonies at Liberty University in May 2017.AP Photo/Steve Helber

Jerry Falwell Jr., son and namesake of the founder of the evangelical Moral Majority movement, has resigned as president of Liberty University.

The resignation followed the Liberty board’s decision to put him on an “indefinite...

Hurricanes and wildfires are colliding with the COVID-19 pandemic – and compounding the risks

Written by Ali Mostafavi, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University

Evacuations during Hurricane Laura could increase the risk of exposure to COVID-19.AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

With the Hurricane Laura hitting Louisiana and Texas as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm and wildfires menacing the western U.S., millions of Americans are facing the complex risks of a natural disaster striking in the...

Mail-in voting's potential problems only begin at the post office – an underfunded, underprepared decentralized system could be trouble

Written by Jennifer Selin, Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy, University of Missouri-Columbia

A massive shift to mail-in voting will be hard for many of the state and local officials who run elections.Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

While much of the recent attention on mail-in voting has focused on the U.S. Postal Service or on the likelihood of voter fraud, there is a lesser-known, looming problem for the November elections: The burden of...

Afghanistan's peace process is stalled. Can the Taliban be trusted to hold up their end of the deal?

Written by Sher Jan Ahmadzai, Director, Center for Afghanistan Studies, University of Nebraska Omaha

Afghan security personnel inspect the rubble of Afghanistan's intelligence services building after a car bomb blast claimed by the Taliban killed at least 11 people, July 13, 2020. AFP via Getty Images

Five months after the United States signed an historic accord with the Taliban – the Islamic militant group that sheltered al-Qaida leader...

Emily Dickinson is the unlikely hero of our time

Written by Matthew Redmond, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English, Stanford University

'The Dyings have been too deep for me,' Dickinson wrote in 1884.Wikimedia Commons

Since her death in 1886, Emily Dickinson has haunted us in many forms.

She has been the precocious “little dead girl” admired by distinguished men; the white-clad, solitary spinster languishing alone in her bedroom; and, in more recent interpretations, the...