Author: TheConversation

By Rebecca Senf, Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona What obligation does a portrait photographer have to their subject? Is it their duty to cast that person in the best light, or the most revealing light? As chief curator at the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography, I have worked with the images of fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon on a handful of occasions during my 16-year tenure. I curated my first exhibition of his work in 2007. The most recent show, “Richard Avedon: Relationships,” is now being exhibited in Milan. Avedon’s portraits include...

By Ben Thomas Gleeson, Doctoral Candidate, Australian National University; and Laura A. B. Wilson, ARC Future Fellow, Australian National University In the 19th century, Charles Darwin was one of the first to notice something interesting about domesticated animals: different species often developed similar changes when compared to their ancient wild ancestors. But why would a host of seemingly unrelated features repeatedly occur together in different domesticated animals? Scientists call this collection of shared changes “domestication syndrome,” and the reason it occurs is still hotly debated. In a new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, we argue that...

By Jerald Podair, Professor of History, Lawrence University As I began writing “Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer,” my biography of the 20th-century radical leader and activist, one of my colleagues cautioned me not to “fall in love.” This, of course, is good advice for any biographer, and I tried to follow it. But it was not easy, because Bayard Rustin was America’s signature radical voice during the 20th century, and yes, I believe those voices includes that of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Rustin trained and mentored. His vision of nonviolence was breathtakingly broad. He was a civil...

By Stephen P. Leatherman, Professor of Coastal Science, Florida International University An unwelcome visitor is headed for Florida and the Caribbean: huge floating mats of sargassum, or free-floating brown seaweed. Nearly every year since 2011, sargassum has inundated Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Florida coastlines in warm months, peaking in June and July. This brown tide rots on the beach, driving away tourists, harming local fishing industries and requiring costly cleanups. According to scientists who monitor the formation of sargassum in the Atlantic Ocean, 2023 could produce the largest bloom ever recorded. That’s bad news for destinations like Miami...

By Eduardo Gamarra, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Florida International University; and Valeriia Popova, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Florida International University Corruption has long been a scourge in parts of Latin America. Traditionally, it has funneled down domestic routes, with local politicians, business interests and drug lords benefiting from graft and dodgy dealings. Indeed, a 2022 report from Transparency International found that 27 out of 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have shown stagnant corruption levels with no improvement in recent years. But over the last two decades, a new form of corruption has...