Science Editor Sarah Braner just submitted a draft of a thesis and is very tired. Send your student events to science@bwog.com if you want your event featured!

Epidemic Empire: Colonialism, Contagion, and Terror, 1817-2020

  • Tuesday, March 30, 12:30-1:30 pm, link here
  • [Anjuli Raza Kolb’s] first scholarly monograph, Epidemic Empire: Colonialism, Contagion, and Terror, 1817-2020 (forthcoming, University of Chicago Press) lays out the literary and discursive history behind the ubiquitous figure of the “terrorism epidemic,” locating the origin of contemporary global Islamophobia in the post-Mutiny British empire, and assessing the contemporary “epidemiological” approach to terrorism as a legacy of therapeutic empire. With readings of the Muslim ban, Rudyard Kipling, the 19th century Anglo-Indian cholera archive, Bram Stoker, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Djamila Boupacha, The Battle of Algiers, Salman Rushdie, and the 9/11 Commission Report, Epidemic Empire calls for comparative and postcolonial methods for the study of the political present.Anjuli is also at work on a second scholarly book about special commodities (sugar, water, and world literature), a collection of poems after the Urdu poet Iqbal entitled Janaab-e Shikva (Watchqueen), and a set of articles on the natural sciences in the colonies. Her poems, translations, essays, and other writings have appeared and are forthcoming in various venues including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Discourse, FENCE, Critical Quarterly, The Boston Review, Peach Magazine, Reality Beach, Public Books, Victorian Studies, Triple Canopy, Guernica, and more.

A Conversation with Brad Smith & The Future of the Internet

  • Wednesday, March 31, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM, link here
  • “As the effects of a changing geopolitical landscape spill across technological development, supply chains, and cyberspace, the U.S. and its like-minded allies must now reconsider whether they wish to push for an Internet that is open, secure, and global. Critical introspection may result in a realization that only two of the three aspects will be achievable, in which case, which one will be discarded? Experts will discuss the survival of the vision of the Internet, while weighing the current challenges that face the new administration as it works to maintain and secure the future of the Internet.”

Race and Bioethics: Amplifying Diverse Voices

  • Thursday, April 1,  6:45 PM – 7:45 PM, link here
  • “How can bioethicists and others better address and reduce racism that unfortunately persists in health care and other areas in the United States and many other countries? Come join the MS in Bioethics program for this important panel of experts, including Harriet Washington (author of the best-selling, prize winner Medical Apartheid), Keisha Ray, PhD (UT Health Houston), Louis Voigt, MD (Chair, Ethics Committee, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), and Joanne Suarez (Founder, Latinx Bioethics), to learn how we can best tackle these challenges.”

COVID-19, Climate, and Racism: Advocating for Justice (Hosted by the Columbia Science Review)

  • Friday, April 2, 7 PM, link here
  • “COVID-19 and climate change, the two global emergencies of our time, have exacerbated another crisis: environmental racism. This fight against the systems that produce and perpetuate inequalities in exposure to environmental pollutants in Black, brown, and Indigenous communities is led by activists who advocate for environmental and racial justice for all. On April 2, Jacqueline Patterson (director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program), Kandi White (indigenous and environmental rights activist), and Jalisa Gilmore (research analyst at the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance) will join forces to discuss the intersection between environmental racism and COVID-19 as well as their own work as activists in the field.”

Image via Shane Maughn