Maxwell School News and Commentary

Heather Law Pezzarossi, assistant professor of anthropology, argues that our contemporary arguments over cultural appropriation are misapplied to Louisa Keyser’s baskets. “Authenticity is a completely Western, American fixation we’ve mapped onto this concept of indigeneity to make it part of an American past, not an American future,” she says.

James Baker and Robert Murrett are leading academic partners in the newly formed US-Ukraine Veterans Bridge—Baker additionally leads a network of frontline state scholars.

“The UAW…strike action is ultimately trying to realize one of the Biden Administration’s core policy goals and political selling points: you can have good, family-sustaining union jobs alongside climate action. The problem is the automakers see EV production as a way to trim labor costs and shift production to non-union plants,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

"Action anthropology and public policy change: Lead poisoning in Syracuse, NY," co-authored by Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Robert Rubinstein, was published in the Annals of Anthropological Practice.

“I think about academics having to write grants all the time,” says Aaron Benanav, assistant professor of sociology, as an example. Those can be formulaic and would take far less time with the help of a machine. In programming, it’s helping engineers “write up basic outlines of code or sometimes like whole sections of code,” he says. 

"Things are going nowhere for Ukraine," says Sean McFate, adjunct professor in Maxwell's Washington Programs. "Wars are no longer won like World War II by taking the enemy’s land, killing their troops and flying your flag over their capital."

"One initial impetus for the book was my desire to bring geography’s concepts and insights into better conversation with topics in Middle East area studies," says Timur Hammond, assistant professor of geography and the environment. "Although over a decade has passed since I started research on this topic, expanding the disciplinary connections between geography and Middle East area studies continues to be a core goal."

Supported by a $1.2 million federal grant, they will evaluate the effectiveness of treatment and recovery services for those who’ve been incarcerated.

Bill Coplin, professor of policy studies, has written “The Path to Equity: Inclusion in the Kingdom of Liberal Arts” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023). In the book, Coplin argues that the approach to liberal arts education that prioritizes academic scholarship and learning for its own sake does not fully equip students with the practical, career-oriented skills for which many people enter college. 

Prema Kurien, professor of sociology, says there is a logical reason why immigrant groups exhibit higher rates of religiosity. “Immigration and relocation from a familiar context to something completely unfamiliar is a theologizing experience,” Kurien says. “It raises existential questions—things that people don’t think about when they are in their home country with a familiar community.”