Year: 2019

United States (Conversation) – Millions of people will tune in to the Oscars to see “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, compete for best picture. There are already a lot of people cheering against it. “Bohemian Rhapsody” has been dogged by accusations of homophobia, and the film’s director, Bryan Singer, was accused of rape and sexual abuse. But as a gay historian, I keep coming back to something else – the tragic history that’s glaringly absent from this movie. Mercury, along with all the other men and…

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World Wide (Conversation) – In Mules and Men (1935), anthropologist, creative writer and Harlem Renaissance upstart Zora Neale Hurston relays the evocative folktale “Why the Sister in Black Works Hardest.” Fatigued after the work of Creation, God casts a massive bundle onto the earth. Intrigued by the mysterious object, a white Southern woman during the antebellum era asks her husband to retrieve it. Reluctant to tote the load himself, the master instructs a slave to fetch it. Soon wearied of the task, the slave then commands his wife to shoulder…

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North America (Conversation) – How does a 100-year-old racist stereotype still impact Black women in North American institutions? When I was a PhD student, a white woman professor was interested in my research, even though I was not her student. After I voiced concern about the similarities between her work and mine, the professor reprimanded me over email. Like “the mammy” who was often punished if she did not appear warm and nurturing, I was told to stay in my lane and to remember my PhD status. When Black women…

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United States (Conversation) – Across the U.S., Republicans control 30 statehouses and the Democrats control 18. That is the largest number of one-party controlled state legislatures since 1914. Minnesota is currently the only state where there’s not one party in control of the state legislature – Republicans have a majority in the state Senate chamber, while Democrats hold the state House chamber. The Democrats’ so-called “blue wave” in the 2018 midterm elections was not big enough to put a major dent into the Republican’s control of state legislatures. As a…

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World Wide (Conversation) – The brooding, dramatic trailer for Frozen II generated a lot of excitement on its release last week when it was watched 116.4m times in just 24 hours. In the two-minute teaser, Elsa stands alone on a stormy shore before running at the towering waves and turning them to ice. By the end of the trailer, which also features her sister Anna and friends Kristoff and Olaf, the younger sibling has drawn Kristoff’s sword and is leaping towards an unknown assailant hidden from view. Disney has been…

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World Wide (Conversation) – Who is currently regarded as the greatest guitarist of all time? It’s a hard question to answer but plenty have tried. In the last decade, a plethora of lists have sought to rank our guitar greats, drawing variously on panels of experts, lone “specialists”, and public opinion polls. My colleagues and I recently analysed ten such lists, which were published on the websites of music journals such as Rolling Stone, Louder and Guitar World, industry groups such as WatchMojo and UDiscover Music and online guitar communities…

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United States (Conversation) – In his State of the Union speech, President Trump called for ending the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and senior public health officials stated that the government plans to focus on highly impacted areas and getting drugs to people at risk. I am a social scientist with over 10 years of expertise in the area of health disparities. My research interests include understanding and addressing disparities in HIV and cancer outcomes, particularly among immigrant and…

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World Wide (Conversation) – All eyes will turn to Rome between 21-24 February, when senior church clerics across the world meet to discuss how to handle the widening sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. Until recently, this has been focused on the abuse of children. But now Pope Francis has admitted – for the first time – sexual abuse by priests against religious women exists and must be acknowledged. And Catholic women are speaking out, under the #NunsToo hashtag. Twenty-five years ago, Irish nun, Maura O’Donohue prepared an extensive…

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Africa (GV) – As the world prepares for the 18th annual Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and their Conference of Parties (CoP18), four southern African countries — Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa — have submitted a petition and proposal seeking to remove restrictions and allow international trade in registered raw ivory of their elephants. CITES is an “international agreement between governments to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival,” and the convention will take place…

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