“When I had the test yesterday I told the guy, ‘God forbid, if you find HIV in me, please, don’t give me the news, just give my parents the news…because if you tell me I might just go straight and commit suicide.’” Abraham,[i] a small time real-estate agent and sometimes used-car salesman, was recounting what […]
Arabs of the Future: Beirut in the Present Tense
13 January 2015 I had flown to Beirut for the first annual Symposium on Arabic Comics to deliver a paper about the Franco-Syrian comic artist Riad Sattouf’s incredibly popular graphic novel, The Arab of the Future. As part of the American University of Beirut’s symposium, and kicking off the events, a top Lebanese wedding planner […]
Every Day Is National Day in Oman
Oman commemorated its 45th National Day on November 18th, which was also His Majesty Sultan Qaboos’s 75th birthday. Festivities weren’t confined to just one day. Preparations were visible in early September, and some of the most anticipated celebrations occurred in December, long after his birthday. In fact, sometimes it feels like every day is National […]
Fool’s Gold: On Oil and its Discontents
Oil is at times called “black gold” because, like the metal, it is precious. Its discovery spurs avaricious rushes and crowns a nouveau-riche class in garish ostentation. Numerous books, films, and artworks have documented the familiar, shimmery promise of the commodity; and the predictable disappointment that follows. The peripatetic Polish foreign correspondent, Ryszard Kapuscinski, wrote […]
Five Things You Should Know About Willy Foote
The Boston Globe – Willy Foote’s ICWA Fellowship inspired him to leave his job as a financial analyst to start Root Capital, a nonprofit social investment fund working in Latin American and Africa. This year Root Capital expects to have lent more than $1 billion to small buisnessses in the developing world. Foote and Cambridge-based Root Capital were featured in this […]
How Are You Enjoying the de Blasio Revolution?
New York Magazine – Past Fellow Andrew Rice’s latest article examines the accomplishments of and opinions on New York’s mayor two years into his term. The piece, which is New York Magazine’s cover story this week, addresses de Blasio’s dismally low approval rating, despite the fact that the city is doing well quantifiably – with a […]
How Burkina Faso’s Rapper-activists Shaped a Year of Upheaval
Nov. 1, 2015 OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — During their brief, failed coup last September, soldiers from Burkina Faso’s elite presidential guard moved swiftly through the capital, Ouagadougou, to assert control and stifle dissent. Driving in convoys, they toured main intersections and other potential rallying points, training automatic weapons on unarmed civilians trying to organize demonstrations. […]
The Global Face of Student Protest
The New York Times – The recent surge in student protests, like those that have recently taken place at Yale and Princeton, is not a uniquely American phenomenon. In a new piece, past Fellow Eve Fairbanks writes about the student protest movement globally, with particular focus on South Africa. Fairbanks describes how dissatisfied South African college students […]
What Paris and Guaymas Have in Common: Lessons in the Long-term Nature of Climate and Diplomacy
Guaymas, Mexico, is an industrial and shrimp-fishing port in the desert state of Sonora. Giant cargo ships nose past steep, uninhabited islands in the bay crowded with saguaro cacti. Every morning for the past month I have lived here, Guaymas has held two certainties: the shriek of an Osprey that patrols the harbor waters, and […]
Looming Crisis: What the United States Must Do to Address the Plight of Migrants from Central America
Summary America’s migrant crisis is far from over. Faced with an influx of tens of thousands of women and children from Central America who overwhelmed US border and immigration agencies in 2014, the United States made several significant policy changes aimed at stemming the flow of people. Although they appear to have eased the immediate […]