BornCurious

Every year around this time, New Orleans clads itself in the green, purple, and gold of carnival, which culminates in Mardi Gras. But the celebration is much more than a bacchanalia—it’s a citywide expression of community. In this episode, we speak to a guest intimately familiar with these traditions, especially how they play out in the city’s Black communities.

Released on February 20, 2025.

Episode transcript

Kim Vaz-Deville, a scholar in residence at Dillard University in New Orleans, conducts research on the lives of African Americans in New Orleans from the early 20th century to the present. As the 2023–2024 Lillian Gollay Knafel Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, she worked on her second book about New Orleans Black Mardi Gras traditions, “The Art of Resistance.”

Online Exhibition: Mystery in Motion: African American Masking and Spirituality in Mardi Gras

Fellowship Biography: Kim Vaz-Deville

Fellow’s Presentation: The Art of Resistance: Sacred Visual Creations of New Orleans’ African American Mardi Gras Maskers

The “Baby Dolls”: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition (LSU Press, 2023)

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media, including sound engineer Jeff Hayash and editors Katie Toulmin and Justin Callahan, for their contributions to the production and editing of this episode.

What is sex for? This is only one of the questions we must consider to be better sexual citizens. In this episode, we talk to an anthropologist who hopes that thinking through such questions will alleviate the problem of sexual assault in the context of our institutional lives, such as college. And she tells us about her current work, a case study.

Released on December 19, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Jennifer S. Hirsch is a professor of sociomedical sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who works at the intersection of social science and public health. Hirsch’s research examines gender, sexuality, and migration; the anthropology of love; social dimensions of HIV; and sexual- and gender-based violence. She is the coauthor, with Shamus Khan, of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus (W. W. Norton, 2020), named an NPR book of the year.

Website: Sexual Citizens

Fellowship Biography: Jennifer S. Hirsch

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

More than 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since the late 1960s—who are they, and why have they gone missing? We talked to two Radcliffe fellows who have devoted their work to telling this history, from an institutional as well as a personal level, as a way to honor the disappeared and empower their families.

This episode contains intense subject matter that may be distressing to some listeners.

Released on December 12, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, a professor and senior researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, is an anthropologist whose work promotes indigenous and women’s rights in Latin America. She is working on an ethnographic account of family collectives searching for their disappeared loved ones throughout Mexico. She was the 2023–2024 Perrin Moorhead Grayson and Bruns Grayson Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Oscar Lopez is is a writer and freelance journalist who covers human rights, politics, and violence. His book in progress examines disappearances in Mexico—and how they became both state policy and organized crime practice. He was the 2023–2024 Shutzer Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Fellowship Biography: Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo

Fellowship Biography: Oscar Lopez

Fellowship Talk: Digging for Hope in Mexico: A Feminist Ethnography in the Land of Mass Graves

Fellowship Talk: And Then They Vanished: A Hidden History of Mexico’s Disappeared

Podcast: Wounds across Borders

Reporting by Oscar Lopez in the New York Times

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Sean Hennessy is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, members of our community delivered “lightning talks”—seven minutes on a particular topic delivered by an expert in the field. In this mini episode, Ayodele Casel, whose “unquestionable radiance” has been called out by the New York Times, shares her thoughts on creativity.

This episode was recorded on September 27, 2024.

Released on December 5, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Ayodele Casel is a tap dancer and choreographer. She was the 2019–2020 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at Radcliffe and can be seen in the American Repertory Theater production Diary of a Tap Dancer from December 12, 2024, to January 4, 2025.

Diary of a Tap Dancer

Ayodele Casel: Personal Website

Article: “Now That She Has the Floor”

Ayodele Casel: Fellowship Biography

Radcliffe Event: “Diary of a Tap Dancer”

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, members of our community delivered “lightning talks”—seven minutes on a particular topic delivered by an expert in the field. In this mini episode, Nikolas Bowie, who is currently working on a book contesting the idea that the Supreme Court should have final say on what our Constitution allows, talks about justice.

This episode was recorded on September 27, 2024.

Released on December 5, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Nikolas Bowie is a 2024–2025 Shutzer Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is a historian whose research critically examines the absence of democracy in institutions that construct and constrain our political lives.

Nikolas Bowie: Fellowship Biography

Harvard Law School Article: “I Draw My Courage from You”

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Diagnosing autism spectrum disorder can be difficult because there is no medical test—like a blood test—to detect the disorder. Doctors draw on an individual’s developmental history and behavior to make a diagnosis. But some populations receive notably more diagnoses than others. It is not clear how many individuals with autism may be overlooked, which means not all who are affected are equally likely to be treated. We know that four times as many boys as girls are diagnosed with autism. In this episode, we talk to a researcher who is challenging that gender ratio by working to establish a broader context for the intersectionality of female gender and autism. Her hope is to create a better roadmap that includes autistic females in research, advocacy, and service delivery.

Released on November 21, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Ruth B. Grossman is a speech and language pathologist, a professor at Emerson College, and the director of the FACE Lab. She was the 2023–2024 Mary Beth and Chris Gordon Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Ruth B. Grossman: Fellowship Biography

FACE Lab

Fellow's Talk: Intersectionality of Gender and Autism

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, members of our community delivered “lightning talks”—seven minutes on a particular topic delivered by an expert in the field. In this mini episode, Durba Mitra, whose research sits at the intersection of feminist and queer studies, tackles the topic of gender.

This episode was recorded on September 27, 2024.

Released on November 15, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Durba Mitra is the Richard B. Wolf Associate Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. Her scholarship brings together feminist studies, sexuality studies, and global intellectual history. She is the author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought (Princeton University Press, 2020), and her next book is The Future That Was: Third World Feminism and the Crisis of Authoritarianism (Princeton University Press, forthcoming). She was a Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor and a 2018–2019 fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she also served as an interim faculty director at the Schlesinger Library.

Durba Mitra: Fellowship Biography

Article: “Indian Sex Life” and the Cultural Control of Women

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The Schlesinger Library is home to more than 3,000 volumes of personal diaries. In this episode, we talk to Kathryn Allamong Jacob, who recently retired as the Schlesinger’s curator of manuscripts, about her intention to read—and describe—as many of these diaries as she can. Not only are these intimate documents crucial for a fuller portrayal of American women’s experiences, but they also include stories that are amusing, confounding, heartbreaking, infuriating, and inspiring.

This episode was recorded on May 2, 2024.

Released on October 24, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Kathryn Allamong Jacob is a historian affiliated with Harvard University’s Department of History and the former Johanna-Maria Fraenkel Curator of Manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library for the History of Women in America. Jacob is currently reading and describing the Schlesinger’s diaries, and she recently coauthored, with Frank Costigliola, “Elizabeth Morrison Diary—UN 1945” in the September 2024 issue of Passport.

Radcliffe Magazine: “Dear Diary”: American Lives in First Person

News & Ideas: Scenes from a Manuscript Curator’s Life

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Since last fall, communities across the country—including our campuses—have questioned the role of universities in public debates. In this panel discussion, cosponsored by Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin and three legal scholars consider whether institutions of higher ed should take stances on the issues of the day.

This episode was recorded on March 5, 2024.

Released on October 10, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is the dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. An award-winning legal historian and an expert in constitutional law, Brown-Nagin is most recently the author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality (Pantheon, 2022).

Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law, the Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar, a professor of political science, a faculty director of the Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity, and a faculty director of the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at University of Chicago Law School. In his work, he focuses on comparative and international law from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Janet Halley is the Eli Goldston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and she is an expert on feminist legal theory; sex, sexuality, gender and the law; family law; law and humanities; and critical legal studies. 

Robert C. Post is the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He specializes in constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on the First Amendment.

Event: Institutional Neutrality in a Polarized World

Harvard Gazette: Should Universities Be Taking Official Stances on Political, Social Issues of Day? 

Harvard Magazine: Universities in Public Debates 

Harvard Crimson: Amid Debates at Harvard, Legal Scholars Discuss Institutional Neutrality at Harvard Radcliffe Institute Event

Max Doyle is the A/V technician at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI).

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Did you know that our Sun’s wind generates a kind of protective cocoon that shields our solar system from harmful galactic material, such as radiation? So how did iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope created by exploding stars, end up here on Earth? In this episode, the astronomer Merav Opher talks us through her discovery that explains how iron-60 got into Antarctic ice and tiny shells at the bottom of our oceans—and what this may tell us about some of the key historical moments for planet Earth.

This episode was recorded on April 29, 2024.

Released on September 26, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Merav Opher, the 2021–2022 William Bentinck Smith Fellow, is a professor of astronomy at Boston University. Her research is focused on understanding the heliosphere, the cocoon around the solar system, and lays the groundwork to predict habitable astrospheres.

Merav Opher: Fellowship Biography

Nature: A Possible Direct Exposure of the Earth to the Cold Dense Interstellar Medium 2–3 Myr Ago

Fellow’s Talk: Understanding Our Heliospheric Shield: Laying the Groundwork to Predict Habitable Astrospheres

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sean Hennessy is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.