IU Themester

Dr. Stephanie Kane studies water. As a professor in the School of Global and International studies, she researches how humans interact with waterways and flooding and how they shape the development of our living spaces and economies. This semester, she’s teaching a class on the political ecology of the arctic circle. Dr. Kane looks at how animals and humans are adapting in a region that’s in a constant state of flux and environmental turmoil.

Dr. Brandon Barker wants to know why we distrust snakes. As a folklorist and professor in the Folklore Department, Dr. Barker examines the myths we build around animals and why we attach humanistic characteristics to them. He also looks at how these myths have influenced our modern perceptions of animals.

Diversity and difference are at the heart of many contemporary social challenges. Changing demographics provoke national debates about citizenship and basic human rights. Humans and associated global economic activity contribute to the spread of invasive species and declines in native biodiversity. Colleges and universities struggle to recruit and retain diverse faculty and students. Efforts to develop collective responses to these and other challenges are often stymied by increasing political polarization, decreasing empathy, and the entrenchment of difference.

This podcast series is created from the College of Arts and Sciences of Indiana University.

Diversity and difference are at the heart of many contemporary social challenges. Changing demographics provoke national debates about citizenship and basic human rights. Humans and associated global economic activity contribute to the spread of invasive species and declines in native biodiversity. Colleges and universities struggle to recruit and retain diverse faculty and students. Efforts to develop collective responses to these and other challenges are often stymied by increasing political polarization, decreasing empathy, and the entrenchment of difference.

This podcast series is created from the College of Arts and Sciences of Indiana University.

Diversity and difference are at the heart of many contemporary social challenges. Changing demographics provoke national debates about citizenship and basic human rights. Humans and associated global economic activity contribute to the spread of invasive species and declines in native biodiversity. Colleges and universities struggle to recruit and retain diverse faculty and students. Efforts to develop collective responses to these and other challenges are often stymied by increasing political polarization, decreasing empathy, and the entrenchment of difference.

This podcast series is created from the College of Arts and Sciences of Indiana University.

Biologist and photographer Roger Hangarter and artist and curator Betsy Stirratt are long-time collaborators who share an idea of beauty as an experience found in nature. Together they discuss a photograph of a spider web taken by Hangarter during an ordinary walk in the woods. They examine beauty as a phenomenon that inspires both scientists and artists, and find common ground in the pursuit of mystery and light.

Folklorist and ethnographer Jason Jackson has a refined eye and a passion for discovering beauty in everyday objects. When asked to choose a “thing of beauty,” Jackson selected a woven basket made by Cherokee artist Rowena Bradley in the 1970s.The basket’s unique beauty, as Jackson sees it, derives not only from the artistry reflected in the object, but from a complex web of history and meaning surrounding it.

Kate Rowold is a professor of fashion design and a leading expert in the social and aesthetic history of Western fashion. Her chosen object of beauty, a corset from IU’s Sage Collection, reveals the tension between ever-shifting perceptions of beauty and the natural body, and the role of fashion as an instrument of cultural conformity and gatekeeping.

A professed historian of the Milky Way, astronomer Catherine Pilachowski exalts the beauty of the ancient spiral galaxy that we call – at least in a galactic sense – home. She describes the glorious physical beauty of the Milky Way, and the beauty inherent in the work of science that leads to new knowledge of its history and future.

A recent encounter with a gorgeously illustrated compilation of Shakespeare forgeries, housed in IU’s Lilly Library, prompts MacKay’s strange tale of falsified beauty. In the years following the “discovery” (around 1795) of William Henry Ireland’s forged manuscripts, their presence played a surprising role in the construction of an idealized vision of Shakespeare that is still embraced today.