IU Themester

In this episode, Dr. Jakobi Williams of Indiana University's Departments of History and African American and African Diaspora Studies explains the history of the Black Power Movement and how the Black Panther Party has influenced modern political figures. Williams discusses how youth activism has changed and stayed the same over the course of the last 50 years. This conversation took an introspective dive into generational trauma from oppression through racism.

In this episode, Dr. Heather Reynolds of the IU Department of Biology shares her thoughts on what a sustainable infrastructure would look like in our society. Reynolds explains this paradigm shift through the importance of community participatory research. The conversation takes an in-depth look at the intersection of the economy, environment, and society.

This conversation took place August 4, 2021.

Professor Michael Hamburger (Indiana University, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) discusses what natural disasters are and how they are impacted by climate change.

Indiana University professors Wendy Gamber (History), Lauren MacLean (Political Science), Lisa-Maria Napoli (Political and Civic Engagement), and Stephanie Sanders (Gender Studies) reflect on a semester of co-teaching a Themester course titled “Sex, Race, & Voting Rights.” The class commemorated and interrogated the centennial of the passage of the United States Constitution's 19th Amendment, which established that the right to vote in the United States could not be denied or abridged on account of sex.

In this episode, IU Religious Studies Professor Dr. Jay Kameron discusses the origins and development of the racial imaginary that lays ground for white supremacy. Carter explains how whiteness operates as religion.

Dr. Hussein Banai, a professor in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, discusses democratic backsliding and erosion as well as the rise of nationalism and polarization. In this episode, Dr. Banai explains the difference between backsliding and erosion and distinguishes between ethnonationalism and civic nationalism. Civic nationalism can co-exist with democracy while ethnonationalism and polarization undermine democratic ideals.

Dr. Ben Robinson, associate professor of Germanic Studies, discusses the emergence of capitalism as the mode of production and questions its continued utility. In considering the driving forces of society under capitalism, the state and the market, Dr. Robinson urges us to consider the power the people wield. It is among the people, the public, that creativity and the possibility of progress lives. We, the people, also have influential power.

Dr Freya Thimsen, a professor in the English department at Indiana University, discusses how rhetoric can be used to create change. In this episode Dr. Thimsen asks us to consider the impact of social media. Can it used to mobilize the masses or is just empty self-gratification?

Myths of Protecting and Serving by College of Arts + Sciences

In part one of a two-part conversation, Dr. Rasul Mowatt (Indiana University) discusses the eleven forms of racial violence on a continuum, from what is intolerable to what is impossible to conceive.