By Helen Solterer As the centenary of James Joyce’s Ulysses gets off to a boisterous start this month, critics and writers are celebrating his multilingual writing. This soundscape of the novel resonates personally for me. Before I could even put it in words, it was part of my family life…

How many parents have kicked off a new year saying, “This will be the year I get my kids to eat healthy foods”? We resolve to be consistent in presenting fresh and wholesome options at the dinner table, but soon enough the battles begin. Trust me, I know. As a…

By Emily Esmaili I am a pediatrician who cares for two young boys in my busy community health clinic; both are 5 years old with spastic cerebral palsy, global developmental delay, and complex seizure disorders. One is a registered refugee from El Salvador who quickly had a treatment team assembled…

By Maggie Poulos Icy saltwater surged from beneath the floorboards. Within minutes, my feet vanished and I was waist-deep in the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricane Sandy was sweeping the Eastern Seaboard and taking my Long Island childhood home with it. …

This essay originally appeared on Duke University’s Versatile Humanists blog. I’m always happy to talk with students about PhD career paths beyond tenured faculty positions. I confess, however, that I cringe every time a student says, “I’d like to talk about alt-ac jobs.” What’s wrong with “alt-ac”? For starters, it’s…

By Philip M. Napoli Last week, the Senate held a hearing on potential harmful effects of social media on children, thanks to a series of reports by the Wall Street Journal . The Journal reported that Facebook ignored internal research demonstrating the negative effects of its Instagram platform on teenage…

By Claudia Koonz EDITOR’S NOTE: Snippets of dialog quoted in this essay were drawn from letters the author wrote during her travels. “20-Year US War Ending as It Began, With Taliban Ruling.” “5,200 US soldiers. 66,000 Afghani military personnel, 47,000 civilians killed.” The recent headlines brought memories of a tribal…

By David H. Schanzer This essay is part of the exhibition catalogue for “Post 9/11: The Evolution of American Law Enforcement,” at the National Law Enforcement Museum, Washington, D.C. The author served as Guest Curator for this exhibit. There are many searing images of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. …

By David H. Schanzer The speed with which the Afghan government collapsed over the weekend after two decades of American investments was stunning. Yet the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was inevitable. …