Author: TheConversation

By Joan Fitzgerald, Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University; and Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University The US$1.2 trillion infrastructure bill now moving through Congress will bring money to cities for much-needed investments in roads, bridges, public transit networks, water infrastructure, electric power grids, broadband networks and traffic safety. We believe that more of this money should also fund the dismantling of racist infrastructure. Many urban highways built in the 1950s and 1960s were deliberately run through neighborhoods occupied by Black families and other people of color, walling these communities...

By Neta C. Crawford, Professor of Political Science and Department Chair, Boston University The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 to destroy al-Qaida, remove the Taliban from power and remake the nation. On August 30, 2021, the U.S. completed a pullout of troops from Afghanistan, providing an uncertain punctuation mark to two decades of conflict. For the past 11 years I have closely followed the post-9/11 conflicts for the Costs of War Project, an initiative that brings together more than 50 scholars, physicians and legal and human rights experts to provide an account of the human, economic, budgetary and...

By Roberto Lucchini, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, Florida International University The 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York resulted in the loss of 2,753 people in the Twin Towers and surrounding area. After the attack, more than 100,000 responders and recovery workers from every state in America, along with some 400,000 residents and other workers around ground zero, were exposed to a toxic cloud of dust that fell as a ghostly, thick layer of ash and then hung in the air for more than three months. The World Trade Center dust plume,...

By Roland Betancourt, Professor, University of California, Irvine From Charlottesville to the Capitol, medieval imagery has been repeatedly on show at far-right rallies and riots in recent years. Displays of Crusader shields and tattoos derived from Norse and Celtic symbols are of little surprise to medieval historians like me who have long documented the appropriation of the Middle Ages by today’s far right. But amid all the expected Viking imagery and nods to the Crusaders has been another dormant “medievalism” that has yet to be fully acknowledged in reporting on both the far right and conspiracy theorist movements: the...

By Janet Bednarek, Professor of History, University of Dayton During the mid-1990s I traveled between Dayton, Ohio, and Washington DC, twice a month during the school year as half of a commuting couple. I could leave Dayton by 5:15 p.m., drive nearly 80 miles to the Columbus airport during rush hour, park my car in the economy lot, and still get to my gate in plenty of time for a 7:30 p.m. departure. Then 9/11 happened. The terrorist attacks brought swift and lasting changes to the air travel experience in the United States. And after 20 years of ever-more-elaborate...

By Stephanie J. Nawyn, Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Gender in Global Context, Michigan State University When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, on August 15, 2021, the frenetic evacuation of foreigners and Afghan nationals began. Thousands of these Afghans assisted the United States government, which put them in danger. The United States provides a special immigrant visa to resettle such individuals. But applicants face long backlogs, and immigrant advocates have appealed to the Biden administration to increase the processing speed. Many of these advocates are religious organizations. Since the April 2021...