Office Hours with Clayton Childress, Angèle Christin, and Iddo Tavory August 14, 2023 This month’s Office Hours comes with an exciting announcement: We are welcoming three new editors—Clayton Childress, Angèle Christin, and Iddo Tavory—to the Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology! Read More
Virtuous Bankers August 07, 2023 The eighteenth-century Bank of England was an institution that operated for the benefit of its shareholders—and yet came to be considered, as Adam Smith described it, “a great engine of state.” Read More
Summer reading July 31, 2023 Are you ready to fill your vacation time and your beach bag with thought-provoking summer reads? Find the best paperbacks for summer among these selections, whether you prefer to delve into real-world ethical questions, Edgar Allan Poe, or the surprising truths behind mythic marvels. Read More
Spotlight on Supporting Diverse Voices: Cara Ocobock July 31, 2023 In this Author Q&A, we highlight the work of Dr. Cara Ocobock, Supporting Diverse Voices grantee and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of Notre Dame. Read More
On origins, Africa, and the novelty of knowledge July 30, 2023 Every living being has origins. Yes, plural, because living organisms adapt and change over time. Read More
Pleasure and Efficacy July 30, 2023 Grace Lavery investigates gender transition as it has been experienced and represented in the modern period. Considering examples that range from the novels of George Eliot to the psychoanalytic practice of Sigmund Freud to marriage manuals by Marie Stopes, Lavery explores the skepticism found in such works about whether it is truly possible to change one’s sex. Read More
Nicolas Mathevon on The Voices of Nature July 27, 2023 Did you know that elephant seals recognize each other by voice? That flies emit sounds with their wings to communicate during courtship? That bird nestlings learn their song by imitating an adult? The world of animal communication is far more incredible than you might think. Read More
Plato the constitutionalist—and the Supreme Court July 27, 2023 A cabal of unelected men and women appointed with tenure for life, making the most important decisions for an entire society with no chance of appeal. That is a good description of the United States Supreme Court. It’s also a good description of the philosopher-rulers of Plato’s Republic. Read More
The everyday surveillance of undocumented immigrants July 26, 2023 Undocumented immigrants live within a tangled web of institutional surveillance that both threatens and maintains their societal presence as they deal with life’s ups and downs. Read More
The guardian tree: The birthplace of Carl Linnaeus July 26, 2023 In ancient times, Nordic people believed that the World Tree was an ash and the protective guardian tree a linden—a Tilia. The biography of Linnaeus should surely begin with a linden. Read More
Office hours with Sarah Damaske July 18, 2023 This month’s Office Hours is a conversation with Sarah Damaske, author of The Tolls of Uncertainty. Damaske is a professor of sociology and labor and employment relations at Pennsylvania State University. She shares some good reasons to be hopeful about the future of sociology and also reminds us of the potential for profound and surprising moments during interviews. Read More
In dialogue: Rethinking climate change and catastrophe July 18, 2023 This month, in pursuit of clarity and advice, we gathered some of our authors and asked the following question: How should we think about the future in the face of climate change? Their perspectives offer us the tools to collectively rethink catastrophe in order to generate alternative possibilities of hope, action, or simple awareness regarding the planet and its beings. Read More
The vanishing lives of coral July 17, 2023 At least in the twenty-first-century popular imagination, coral alternately symbolizes either a blissful day at the beach or the end of our planet as we know it. In the nineteenth century, however, coral had many other lives. Read More
Video PUP Speaks: Athena Aktipis on the evolutionary drivers of cancer July 17, 2023 When most of us consider the driving forces of cancer, not many of us would consider evolution to be one of them. It wasn’t until she began her research that Athena Aktipis realized that not only is cancer a living and ever evolving entity, but it is evolution itself that has paved the way for cancer’s ubiquity. Read More
How I fell in love with natural history, with Robert Still July 12, 2023 To celebrate the arrival of summer and the gifts of nature that come with it, we asked several of our naturalist writers and scholars to respond to the following question: How did you fall in love with natural history? This week, we hear from Dr. Robert Still, publishing director of WILDGuides and co-author of British and Irish Wild Flowers and Plants. Read More