The Academic Minute for 2023.12.25-2023.12.29

The Academic Minute from 12.25 – 12.29

Monday
Bryant Simon – Temple University
The History of Public Bathrooms, a Story of Inequality
A graduate of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Bryant Simon is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of History at Temple University.  He is the author of four books about US History, most recently, The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives (New Press, 2018).  His current project looks at the rise, fall, and tentative re-emergence of the public bathroom in the US over the last 120 years.  Last year, he was awarded the Great Teacher Award at Temple.  He is, in addition, an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer and an elected member of the Society of American Historians.

Tuesday
Ellen Meiser – University of Hawaii at Hilo
Enduring the Heat of the Kitchen
Ellen is an Alaska-grown sociologist interested in qualitative research, social psychology, emotions, and the culinary industry. She is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, and a co-creator and co-host of The Social Breakdown, the sociology podcast nobody wants, but everybody needs.

Wednesday
David Shoemaker – Cornell University
Why Psychopaths Have a Bad Sense of Humor
David Shoemaker is a Professor and Interim Chair of the Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University. His research focuses on humor and morality, agency and responsibility, and personal identity and ethics. He has published two monographs, over 60 peer-reviewed articles, and eight edited volumes. He is an associate editor of the journal Ethics, and was the co-founder and longstanding co-editor of the ethics blog PEA Soup.

Thursday
Robin Morrison – University of Zurich
Overcoming Adversity
Robin Morrison is a Senior Researcher in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Zurich and an Affiliate Scientist at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda. She uses long-term data from wild gorillas to examine the evolution of complex social behaviors and life history patterns.

Friday
Lars Tragardh – Uppsala University
The Swedish Theory of Love
Ph.D in History from UC Berkeley; professor of history at Uppsala university, Sweden; public commentator on Swedish politics and society.