Top of page

Category: Culture & Society

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

How to Think About Data: A Conversation with Christine Borgman

Posted by: Dan Turello

Members of the Scholars Council are appointed by the Librarian of Congress to advise on matters related to scholarship at the Library, with special attention to the Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. The Council includes scholars, writers, researchers, and scientists. “Insights” is featuring some of the work of this group of thinkers. Dan Turello …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Can Big Data Save Us from Ourselves? A Conversation About Information, Democracy, and Dystopia

Posted by: Dan Turello

On a rainy day in late spring, a pan-Asian noodle restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue offered the perfect nook for a spirited conversation about big data, algorithms, and the construction of our legal and social realities. Among those at the table with me were Martin Hilbert, who was a Kluge Distinguished Visiting Scholar and is Associate …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

What’s on Your Holiday Table? A Conversation About Health, Spirituality, Food, and Farming

Posted by: Dan Turello

I’m talking with three friends who think about, and work with, food, farming, and culture. Catherine Newell is a Larson Fellow who is studying how consumers use scientific concepts about food and diet to build a spiritual practice. Danille Christensen was a Kluge Fellow in 2016. As a folklorist, she investigates the social meanings of food practices and is writing about home …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Emoji, Texting and Social Media: How Do They Impact Language?

Posted by: Dan Turello

I’m here with Dame Wendy Hall, Kluge Chair in Technology and Society, Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton and early pioneer in web protocols; with Alexandre Loktionov, AHRC Fellow at the Kluge Center and an expert on hieroglyphic and cuneiform legal texts; and with Jessica Lingel, Kluge Fellow, assistant professor at …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Life as it Could Be: A Conversation with Luis Campos

Posted by: Dan Turello

Fourth Astrobiology Chair Luis Campos began his tenure at the Kluge Center on October 3. A historian of science, his most recent book is “Radium and the Secret of Life” (University of Chicago Press, 2015). He will spend his fellowship year at the Kluge Center studying the history of synthetic biology and its overlap with astrobiology …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Africa, Past and Future: A Conversation with Toyin Falola

Posted by: Dan Turello

Members of the Scholars Council are appointed by the Librarian of Congress to advise on matters related to scholarship at the Library, with special attention to the Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. The Council includes distinguished scholars, writers, researchers and scientists. “Insights” is featuring some of the work of this highly-accomplished group of thinkers. …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

War and Superheroes: How the Writer’s War Board Used Comics to Spread its Message in WWII

Posted by: Dan Turello

Historian Paul Hirsch was a Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation Fellow for Caricature and Cartoon at The John W. Kluge Center in summer 2015. His research explored the intersection of visual culture, race, policymaking, and diplomacy from World War II through the post-Cold War period. Paul, your work investigates the convergence of comic book publishing …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Women, Fashion, and the Transatlantic Avant-Garde

Posted by: Dan Turello

“Oh, ok, I see, you think this has nothing to do with you” taunted fashion editor Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, as she explained to her skeptical assistant that the “cerulean” sweater she had picked out, to prove she was immune to trends, was actually the calculated product of …