Author: TheConversation

By Patty Heyda, Associate Professor of Urban Design and Architecture, Washington University in St Louis The U.S. Postal Service is under threat of collapse and privatization. This comes after years of federal political maneuvering that has effectively depleted revenues and staffing, issues now amplified by new cuts to overtime worker pay and slowed delivery. This matters now more than ever as the COVID-19 pandemic rages, and ahead of November elections when many Americans anticipate voting by mail in order to stay safe. But the impacts of degrading the USPS go beyond simply making mail service less reliable and hindering...

By Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John’s University From Richmond to New York City to Seattle, anti-racist activists are getting results as Confederate monuments are coming down by the dozens. In Richmond, Virginia, protesters have changed the story of Lee Circle, home to a 130-year-old monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It is now a new community space where graffiti, music and projected images turn the statue of Lee from a monument to white supremacy into a backdrop proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. This is not a new phenomenon. I’m...

By Jennifer Hamilton, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney Punks (of the 70s and 80s kind) were not known for their optimism. Quite the opposite in fact. Raging against the establishment in various ways, there was “no future” because, according to the Sex Pistols, punks are “the poison / In your human machine / We’re the future / Your future”. To be punk, was, by definition, to resist the future. In contrast, the most basic definition of solarpunk — offered by musician and photographer Jay Springett — is that it is a movement...