Name and Draw: An Exploration of Communicating Traditional Knowledge in the Work of Abel Rodríguez

Indigenous peoples possess a close and complex relationship with their surroundings and have gathered from their traditions and life experiences invaluable and extensive knowledge of a wide range of academic research areas.

What Water Teaches: Wissenschaft in the Age of Sea Level Rise

Does the sense of urgency occasioned by global warming and sea level rise have the power to reshape the humanities? Insofar as sea level rise will affect thousands of institutions of education and culture in coastal cities, the answer is yes.

Douglas Bleakley, father of Alan Bleakley, behind the wheel of a Jaguar c.1946

Don’t Breathe a Word: A Psychoanalysis of Medicine’s Inflations

Modern medicine has achieved great things but, like all institutions, it has significant flaws. Medicine’s major flaw is inflation, appearing in a variety of guises and intensities as the following: overconfidence, arrogance, self-importance, narcissism, authoritarianism, impulsivity or lack of reflection, fear of failure, intolerance of ambiguity, and overdeterminism.

Persian Literature and Educating the Whole Person

I suggest that students can learn to use emotional and aesthetic intelligence as a means of living healthier and more balanced lives and that ancient artistic and literary masterpieces are intellectual tools that revive and nourish our ability to pause, look closely, and ponder. I further suggest that, more often than not, seeking questions is more important than finding answers.

Eko-Atlantic project, Nigeria.

Re-Urbanism in Africa: Frictionless Utopias for the Contemporary Urban Age

Following an introduction to the concept of the "parallel city" or "satellite city," this essay reviews a variety of examples, including city-building projects in Lagos, Morocco, Mauritius, Ghana, and Uganda.

Malaria Commission of the League of Nations, Geneva. Photograph by Poesch photographic agency, 1928

From Colonial Medicine to International Health in East Asia

This essay examines in depth the history of colonial medicine in East Asia and its transition to an international health initiative.

Colorful pile of pills

Toward Global Histories of Pharmaceuticals in East Asia

Timothy Yang

This brief essay considers the history of pharmaceuticals in East Asia. It begins with a discussion of the burgeoning popularity of cultural and social histories of modern medicine in East Asia, and it describes the benefits and potential pitfalls of examining medicines as commodities.

Motorcyclist outside the Nallur Kandaswamy temple, Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Photo by Jim Sykes.

Remapping Sound Studies

The authors argue that this project necessitates asking different sorts of questions than have been typically asked in sound studies, and they contend that this change will in turn require broadening the purview of sound studies because it will challenge some of the field’s central presuppositions.

Shaikh Dervish

Explorations in Islamic Feminist Epistemology

Responsive to Elizabeth Castelli’s (2001) call to "trouble" and destabilize our categories of analysis in the study of religion and gender, this paper explores the feminist epistemological category of "experience," particularly as it relates to the study of Islam and Muslim societies.

The Future of Political Theory: The Normative Science of Politics

This essay examines the contrasts between political theory and political science, with a view toward the future trends of the two in relation to one another in the twenty-first century. The author ventures to make three predictions and invites readers to offer their own insights in response.

African Intellectuals in the Face of the Phenomenon of Dictatorship

Given the current political climate, this paper insists that we recognize the work of Africans who strove to counter totalitarianism throughout the twentieth century. Starting with the Fifth Pan-African Conference in 1945, it brings to light the contributions of African thinkers, writers, and artists who dedicated themselves to resistance in the form of creative production.

Thinking "Global Blackness" Through the Frame of Angelus Novus: An Exploration of Racial Aporias and the Politics of Modern Power, Sovereignty, and Temporality

In this exploratory essay, I would like to offer a way of thinking about the generative processes inherent in the formation of modern power that bring about and sustain a globalizing "blackness."