The global average temperature for July 2023 was the highest on record—and maybe the highest for the last 120 years according to the United Nations’ weather agency. In the United States, temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona reached a record 118 degrees Fahrenheit and hit highs of at least 110 degrees for 31 consecutive days—also a record. And yet the populations of Arizona, Texas, and Florida, the states hardest hit by the warming trends, continue to expand. All of those people need air conditioning and refrigeration to make life bearable--but current cooling technologies just make the planet warmer. That's why Jinyoung Seo, PhD '23, wants to reinvent the air conditioner. In this episode of Colloquy, Seo talks about how he uses solid refrigerants to eliminate cooling systems’ direct greenhouse gas emissions—all while making them smaller and vastly more efficient.

In the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, thousands enlisted in the US military, were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and became embroiled in conflicts that were often fought not on the battlefield but in rural villages and in cities. To prepare for that type of warfare, American troops often trained at bases in the southwestern United States, where the military constructed replicas of Afghan and Iraqi towns. The US military hired people of Arabic descent to portray civilians working in markets, driving their cars--and being insurgents and terrorists.

In this episode of Colloquy, the scholar Adam Longenbach discusses the normalization of military violence in civilian spaces and the role that architecture plays in that process. Longenbach traces the trend back to its beginnings in World War II to show how the built environment, augmented by Hollywood stagecraft, has been used to turn city streets and urban neighborhoods into battle zones. (This talk was originally given during the Harvard Horizons Symposium in 2023.)

Starting July 4, 2021, and lasting past the holiday, members of the LGBTQ community converged on Provincetown, Massachusetts, for a holiday that was supposed to be a celebration of the end of the long COVID-19 lockdown. When the weather turned rainy, they confidently took the party indoors, packing the little seaside town’s restaurants, bars, and clubs. Why not? They were vaccinated and mask mandates had been lifted.

What happened next shocked both the revelers and the country, shutting down what had been hyped as a “hot vax summer,” and signaling that there was a long way to go before the pandemic was over. PhD student Lydia Krasilnikova—who co-led an 80-person, multi-organization collaboration examining the July 2021 superspreader event in Provincetown—talks about what happened and how the outbreak contributed to the US Center for Disease Control’s decision to resume its recommendation of indoor masking later that year.

Growing up in Ferguson, Missouri, Harvard Griffin GSAS PhD student Steven Kasparek witnessed violence. He experienced it himself. He was left with some burning questions about which children go on to thrive and which struggle in the wake of exposure to violence. In this episode of Colloquy, Kasparek presents his research on the ways that childhood violence can shape bias—and bias can shape mental health throughout our lives. He also suggests new strategies to help protect violence-exposed youth from developing mental health problems that may ultimately undermine their success and well-being. (Note: This talk was originally given during the Harvard Horizons Symposium in 2023.)

In 2014, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 276 female students from their dormitory at the Government Girls Secondary School in the Nigerian town of Chibok. The act inspired international outrage and a worldwide campaign to #BringBackOurGirls. Far less attention has been paid, however, to the plight of those who escape Boko Haram’s violence and become displaced within their own country. Now, anthropologist Gbemisola Abiola, PhD '23, is exploring different sites—camps, informal settlements, and host communities—where internally displaced persons (IDP) resettle. In this episode of Colloquy, Abiola discusses protracted displacement, the new structures of social and economic life that emerge from it, and the different survival strategies and tools IDP use to rebuild their lives.

It’s important to understand how massive stars live and die because of their role in the formation of some of the fundamental elements of the universe. That kind of science requires the development of computer simulations that model the universe from the Big Bang to today—an unimaginably complex task that is rife with uncertainties, computationally expensive, and can take years to complete. But data scientist and astrophysicist Floor Broekgaarden, PhD '23, has developed an algorithm that speeds up these simulations by more than a factor of 100, dramatically decreasing their cost as well. In this episode of Colloquy, Broekgaarden explains her work and why she has high hopes for its impact on our understanding of how the universe evolved. (Note: This talk was originally given during the Harvard Horizons Symposium in 2023.)

Ben Bellet, is a Harvard Griffin GSAS PhD student in clinical psychology who studies PTSD. A graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, Bellet served as an officer in the army for five years. During his deployments in Afghanistan and Kuwait, he found himself less and less interested in logistics and operations and more interested in the Dostoevskian question of human suffering, particularly among the soldiers he led. 

Today, at Harvard, Bellet researches the ways that those living with PTSD can compulsively seek reminders of trauma. One of the gold standard treatments, exposure therapy, encourages survivors to approach reminders of the traumatic event. But Bellet's studies indicate that some survivors might expose themselves to these reminders in ways that confirm toxic beliefs about themselves. His data suggests that clinicians need to be flexible in their approach to treating the condition, always keeping in mind their patients need to find meaning in their distress. 

For this special Poetry Month bonus episode of Colloquy, a conversation with Harvard Professor Helen Vendler, PhD ’60—once called “the best poetry critic in America” by The New Republic’s Alfred Kazin—about the art of verse and why both the poetic form and its great works have enduring value in the era of the social media-induced seven-second attention span.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Is this saying from a Zen Buddhist Text? The Hindu Bhagavad Gita? Actually, these are the words of Jesus . . . according to the 2,000-year-old Gospel of Thomas. The Princeton University scholar Elaine Pagels, PhD '70, says that this text—discovered in Egypt in 1945 along with the Gospel of Philip—contains Christ’s “secret teachings,” in contrast to those meant for public worship and included in the four canonical gospels of the New Testament. 

So why were the gospels of Thomas and Philip banned by the church as illegitimate and heretical over 1600 years ago? And how do they change the way we understand the Christian tradition today?

This month on Colloquy: The “Gnostic Gospels” and their place in the history of early Christianity with Elaine Pagels.

As politicians and pundits wring their hands over the debt ceiling, the economist and Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff, PhD ’77, says the United States is already bankrupt. He calculates the health care and pension obligations to the country's rapidly aging population in the many trillions of dollars, far outpacing tax revenue in the coming decades. And he says economic growth won't save us. But he claims to have a few proposals that may, as well as some advice about personal investing, saving, and spending in uncertain times.