Conversations
Jocelyn Viterna Portrait
Jocelyn Viterna is the chair of Harvard’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a professor of sociology, and a researcher of sexual and reproductive rights.
Fifteen Questions: Jocelyn Viterna on El Salvador, Abortion Bans, and Finding Patterns
FM sat down with sociologist Jocelyn Viterna to talk about her research into gender politics and reproductive justice in El Salvador. “If a social movement is not based in actually changing the hearts and minds and practices of individuals, then I think it’s always going to be vulnerable,” she says.
Fifteen Questions: David Yang on Chinese Authoritarianism, Political Economy, and Cookbooks
The Economics professor sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss his work on the political economy of authoritarian regimes in China. “There are people in China who eagerly want and fight for democracy. There are people in the U.S. who take on actions that go very much against democracy,” he says.
Mina Cikara Portrait
Mina Cikara is a Psychology professor that studies discrimination, conflict, and harm using social psychological and cognitive neuroscience approaches.
Fifteen Questions: Mina Cikara on Social Psychology, Intergroup Conflict, and Being a ‘Valley Rat’
Psychology professor Mina Cikara sat down with the magazine to discuss her influences and the psychology of discrimination. “Social psychology is rife with theorizing about all of the different inputs to intergroup conflict,” she says. “There are many, and they are multiply determined, and they are incredibly complex.”
Fifteen Questions: Catherine Brekus on Historical Women, Christian Nationalism, and Religious Freedom
Divinity School professor Catherine A. Brekus ’85 sat down with Fifteen Minutes to talk about women’s history and religion. “For me, religion became a tool for asking questions about how women had made sense of their lives, and how they had made meaning,” she says.
Fifteen Questions: Kathleen Coleman on Gladiators, the Classics, and Poems
The former Chair of Harvard’s Classics Department discusses her experiences in apartheid South Africa, the gladiators of Ancient Rome, and the future of the Classics. She has been “privileged,” she says, “to spend my career basically pursuing my hobby.”
Kathleen Coleman
Kathleen M. Coleman, a member of Harvard’s faculty for a quarter-century, is a Classics professor and the Department’s chair as well as a Senior Research Curator for the Harvard Art Museums.
Fifteen Questions: Orlando Patterson on the Sociology of Slavery, Advising the Jamaican Prime Minister, and Cricket
Historical and cultural sociologist Orlando Patterson sat down to discuss his upbringing and sociology research. “I didn’t get into academia just for the scholarship,” he says. “My work was motivated by the need to understand Jamaica.”
Fifteen Questions: Ian Miller on Zoos, Climate Change, and the Quad
The historian and Cabot House Faculty Dean Ian J. Miller sat down to discuss his research on empire and energy in modern Japan and East Asia and life as a faculty dean. “When you stand somewhere else, you look at the world through someone else’s eyes or you work with historical documents, reading into those powerful texts, it can be empowering,” he says.
Aliyah Collins Is Eco-Healing
Collins founded the Eco-Healing Project last fall to “help HBCU students heal and recover from the impact of climate disasters.”
Beloved Math Lecturer Dusty Grundmeier Bids Farewell to Harvard
Math lecturer Dusty Grundmeier is leaving Harvard at the semester’s end. Known for his empathy and engaging lectures, he’s something of a legend among students on campus. We sat down with Grundmeier and interviewed students to explore what makes his teaching special.
Aliyah Collins
Aliyah S. Collins, now a student at the Harvard Divinity School, notes that there is a unique, intersectional impact of climate disasters for HBCU students, especially those who are low-income. “A lot of students face or experience a lot of PTSD, stress, depression, just having to navigate the climate disaster,” Collins says.
Dusty Three
Grundmeier points out one of his favorite thank you cards, which is signed by all the students in one of his math classes and reads “We Love You Dusty.” Gifts like these are littered throughout Grundmeier’s office.
Dusty 2
Photos of Grundmeier’s wife, three children, and cat Albie sit in frames atop a box in the corner, as well as in decorative transparent cubes on the table before us. “There’s my daughter on Halloween. This is on the Tea Party Boat in Boston. I got my cat here, Albie,” Grundmeier says. “I think he was more popular than I was.”
