Upcoming Events

Professor Laitin’s presentation applies text analysis and machine learning tools to an analysis of social media, to determine where migration issues are most salient, whether the messages focus on economic challenges or legal rights, and whether sentiments change with significant events, such as terrorist attacks or mass deaths of drowned asylum seekers. By analyzing the data…

Life and random algorithms are intertwined. Individuals and communities are built upon random algorithms, through mechanisms of mutation and biological regulatory networks for evolution of individuals, to social order emerging from traditions, constitutions, and communication platforms. Random algorithms are increasingly exerting themselves in modern living. Distributed trust and social choice…

In this talk, Professor Goddard will discuss several new forms of optical microscopy that his group developed this past year. Their goal was to recover tiny nanoscale features using a conventional microscope. This problem is challenging because of the low signal to noise ratio for such features. In the first method, they introduced the regularized pseudo-phase and used it to measure nanoscale…

Torkwase Dyson uses abstract painting and drawing to investigate spatial relationships, particularly as experienced by black and brown bodies as they navigate space historically, and in the contemporary environment. Dyson will discuss her recent work, including 1919: Black Water, currently on view at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at Columbia University. Works in this exhibition…

This paper uses a structural decomposition method to understand the factors at the origin of the decrease in irrigated water use in agriculture in the U.S.

Incorporating research conducted in collaboration with Andre F. T. Avelino (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO), Professor Dall’erba will use a structural decomposition method to understand the factors at the origin of…

"Mutual aid" is a term used for projects where people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government, but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable. Famous examples of mutual aid projects include the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast Program,…

Images of Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars dominated French visual culture in the thirty or so years following his fall from power in 1815. This presentation examines a number of the most common themes found in these images: Napoleon as a defender of the Revolution; Napoleon as fallible and human, appearing haggard, portly, dispirited, or in any number of other deficient emotional and physical…

Professor Kofler will argue how scientific and value-based knowledge can inform technology decision-making in ways that are both context-dependent and global in scope. The inadequacy of dominant theories in environmental ethics to support such decision-making will also be presented and an alternative ethos proposed: one that respects the interconnectedness of human and environmental health and…

Disability is everywhere in the world, including in transformative justice. How does it show up in our work to create alternatives to police and prison to create safety, healing and justice by and for survivors of violence? In this lively talk with lots of swearing, disability and transformative justice movement worker and writer/editor Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha will examine just what…