The Thought Project Podcast At The Graduate Center

Our guest today is Kevin Morris, a second-year Ph.D. student in Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is also a quantitative researcher in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. In that role, he examines the impact of laws and policies on poll access, with a particular focus on the restoration of rights and the maintenance of voter lists. This past June, he testified before the U.S. House of Representatives at its hearing about “Voting in America: The Potential for Polling Place Quality and Restrictions on Opportunities to Vote to Interfere with Free and Fair Access to the Ballot.” Morris testified in favor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore a key element of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. Since this podcast was recorded on July 14, the Brennan Center reported that 18 states have enacted 30 laws this year that will make it harder for Americans to vote. In this conversation, Morris expl

Today’s guest is Nathalie Etoke, a professor of French at the Graduate Center, CUNY, who specializes in literature and cinema of Francophone sub-Saharan Africa, Black French studies, queer studies in Africa and the Caribbean, and Africana existential thought. She is the author of three books: Writing the Woman's Body in Francophone Sub Saharan Literature; Melancholia: Africana the Indispensable Overcoming of the Black Condition, which won the Frantz Fanon Prize from the Caribbean Philosophical Association; and her most recent book, Shades of Black, which was published in April 2021 by Seagull Books. She is working on her next book, Black Existential Freedom, which will be published in June 2022 by Rowman and Littlefield. In this wide-ranging conversation, Etoke elaborates on how her research was shaped by her experience of having lived two lives, as an African woman who studied in France and came to the U.S. where she was exposed to the Black radical tradition and the Black intellectual tradition. She sees B

Today’s guests, Christopher Stults and J.L. Stewart, are co-authors of the recent article “Consensual Non-Monogamy Relationship Rules Among Young Gay and Bisexual Men: A Dyadic Qualitative Analysis,” published in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Stults is an assistant professor of psychology at Baruch College and at the Graduate Center, CUNY, where he works with students in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science training area. His research is focused on LGBTQ health, with specific lines of research examining intimate partner violence and consensual non-monogamy in these populations. Stewart is a postdoctoral affiliate of the Relationship Health Research Team at Hunter College (CUNY). Her research is guided by a rights-based approach to positive sexuality development and aims to improve health equity among sexually diverse youth. They join The Thought Project to discuss their study, which focuses on the relationships of gay and bisexual men, a population that faces sexual health disparities and unique challe

Today’s guest is Elvis Bakaitis, interim head of reference at the Graduate Center's Mina Rees Library. They serve on the CUNY LGBTQ Council and are a member of the board of CLAGS: the Center for LGBTQ Studies at the Graduate Center. They are also the library liaison to Women's and Gender Studies master’s program at the Graduate Center. Bakaitis is the author and illustrator of Homos in Herstory and co-founder and co-lead of the New York City Feminist Zine fest. In this Pride Month episode of The Thought Project, Bakaitis talks about queer librarianship and their project to research and create new queer and feminist bibliographies, plus an oral history project about Bluestockings Bookstore. We discuss current LGBTQ activism at CUNY, and Bakaitis talks about their roles as interim head of reference at the Mina Rees Library and board member of the CUNY LGBTQ Council and CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies.

The guests for this Pride Month episode of The Thought Project include Mica Baum Tuccillo, a student in the Psychology Ph.D. program (Critical Social/Personality Psychology training area) at the CUNY Graduate Center and a research fellow in its Publics Lab. She supported and facilitated the Beyond Acceptance Research Collective, a queer youth research project under the auspices of the Graduate Center’s Public Science Project. Tuccillo worked with co-researchers Tess/Audre and Leo Lipson, student artists who just graduated from high school. Tess/Audre will start at City College in the fall. Lipson will attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They contributed drawings and zines to the Beyond Acceptance project. The three guests discuss the work of the Beyond Acceptance Research Collective, which involves youth and adults in documenting the family relationships and experiences of LGBTQ+ and gender-expansive youth. The Beyond Acceptance Research Collective was funded and supported by the New York Ci

On this episode of The Thought Project, Manu Bhagavan, professor of history at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, and Vivian Louie, professor of urban policy and planning and director of the Asian American Studies Program and Center at Hunter College, discuss the spike in hate crimes around the world, particularly the hatred and violence that have been directed toward Americans who are of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Bhagavan frames the hate in the context of the global rise of nationalism and of strongmen leaders who play on “majoritarian sentiments in their countries on racism, on xenophobia, on misogyny.” He links these trends to “increasing waves of hate crimes in country, after country, across the globe.” Louie, who recently spoke at a Stop Asian Hate rally in Bergen County, New Jersey, offers a remedy. “We need education that teaches us about the historical and civic contributions of Asian Americans, and about our nation's own immigration history of exclusion and inclusion,” she sa

Rosa Squillacote and Milo Ward, students in the Ph.D. Program in Political Science at The Graduate Center, CUNY, share an interest in studying the New York City Police Department and policing in the U.S. Squillacote researches the limits of diversity within the NYPD and is an organizer for Mott Haven Families, an organization that aims to promote community safety through social support rather than policing. For his dissertation, Ward is analyzing political theory as it relates to policing. Specifically, he studies the political thought of James Q. Wilson, who is known for his broken windows theory of policing that the NYPD adopted in the 1990s when it sought to tamp down minor violations and restore order as a way to deter violent crimes. Squillacote and Ward join The Thought Project podcast to talk about President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office and what’s ahead. What can the Biden administration do to address racial injustice? How has this issue been acknowledged in the first 100 days? What should be

New York’s Newtown Creek is notorious as one of the most polluted waterways in the U.S., the site of a massive oil spill and industrial pollution stretching back to the 19th century. Restoration is underway, though, and three CUNY faculty members, Peter Groffman, Monica Trujillo, and Erika Niwa, are collaborating to help. They have teamed up to rehabilitate the estuary’s ecology and improve the quality of life around the former Superfund site. Groffman and Trujillo join The Thought Project to discuss their work and its impact. They explain the benefits of working across disciplines and the importance of partnering with people in the community to restore Newtown Creek’s ecology and abundancy. Groffman is a professor with the Environmental Science Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center of The Graduate Center, CUNY. Trujillo is a professor of microbiology in the department of Biological Sciences and Geology at Queensborough Community College, and Niwa, who is not on the podcast, is a professor of

For over a year Dianne Greenfield, a professor at Queens College and the Environmental Science Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and Maria Tzortziou a professor at City College and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Program at The Graduate Center, have been researching how the COVID-19 pandemic’s forced shutdown has affected water quality in the Long Island Sound, an estuary bordered by New York and Connecticut. Long Island Sound is the most urbanized estuary of North America, home to more than four million persons who live in the coastal communities along its shorelines. It is considered one of the most important and valuable estuaries in America in terms of its ecological value and rich biodiversity, according to Professor Tzortziou. More than three decades ago, Congress designated Long Island Sound an estuary of national significance. The Sound is a rich ecosystem that contains thousands of invertebrates, fish, and migratory bird species. The waterway also

New York City has a water runoff problem that’s leading to the contamination of its lakes, rivers, and marine waterways. The city’s paved streets lower the amount of rainwater that can be absorbed, which leads to greater runoff. That runoff in turn causes local floods and overwhelmed sewer systems that bring effluent into the city’s many waterways, such as the Hudson River. Scientists expect these problems to intensify with higher seas and more intense storms that accompany climate change. In this episode of The Thought Project, Jennifer Cherrier, a professor of environmental sciences at The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, discusses her efforts to counteract the devastating effects of stormwater runoff and help New York remain a leader in water resource management. Cherrier has created and patented EcoWEIR, a technology designed to filter and reduce levels of carbon and nitrogen and other contaminants in large water systems. The system is currently being tested as a solution to Prospect Park’s probl

Ash Marinaccio is a multidisciplinary and award-winning documentarian working in theater, film, and photography. She is dedicated to storytelling that highlights the socio-political issues defining our times and is particularly invested in telling queer and working-class stories. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Theatre and Performance program at The Graduate Center, CUNY where she has tapped her international experience in using theater as a tool for activism and social justice. She travels and works extensively in areas of war and conflict and, for her Ph.D., is investigating theater practices in war zones. In this podcast, Marinaccio talks about her experiences growing up as the daughter of a single mother, becoming the first in her family to go to college, and finding faculty mentors who changed the course of her life. She shares her journey in theater, including starting and directing Girl Be Heard, a nonprofit theater organization devoted to young women in theater and social justice, which wa

The Community Sensor Lab at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY (CUNY ASRC) aims to give New Yorkers living in marginalized communities, who are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and to air, water, and soil pollution, the ability to monitor their environment and use the data that they collect to advocate for environmental justice. In this podcast, we talk to the scientists who designed and run the Community Sensor Lab, Professor Ricardo Toledo-Crow, director of the CUNY ASRC’s Next Generation Environmental Sensor Lab, and Kendra Krueger, a science education coordinator and the outreach and education director at the CUNY ASRC’s Center for Advanced Technology (Sensor CAT). Listen in to learn how the project started, how it works, and how, by putting low-cost environmental sensors in the hands of citizens, it can empower marginalized New Yorkers to advocate for a safer, cleaner environment. Over the next several broadcasts — leading up to and beyond Earth Day

From the transistors in the iPhone 12 to coronavirus vaccines, nanotechnology surrounds us. In this episode of The Thought Project podcast, Graduate Center Professor Rein Ulijn describes the current and potential impact of nanoscience, or the study of structures and materials at the nanometer scale (one millionth of a millimeter, the scale of atoms and molecules), on education and workforce development at CUNY and in life beyond the science lab. He also describes a Center for Advanced Technology that he leads that is spurring the development of new sensor technologies, promoting closer ties between academic research and industry, and helping students prepare for STEM jobs. Ulijn directs the Nanoscience Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) and is the Einstein Professor of Chemistry at The Graduate Center and Hunter College. He also leads CUNY ASRC’s Sensor CAT, which creates partnerships between the university and local businesses to develop new sensor techn

Heath Brown is an associate professor of public policy and criminal justice at John Jay College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. He studies policy process, interest groups, presidential transitions, and education policy. He is the author of five books, including Homeschooling the Right: How Conservative Education Activism Erodes the State, which was published by Columbia University Press in January and is the subject of this episode of The Thought Project. Brown writes about the families who choose to homeschool and “and who for about 40 years have been closely connected to the conservative movement.” He dives into the origins and development of the homeschool movement, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He looks at the resistance to regulation within the homeschool community and what that means for education and political polarization. The book offers a new perspective on the deep divisions in the U.S. in 2021.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is a distinguished professor of economics at The Graduate Center, CUNY, a faculty member at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, and a New York Times columnist. He writes frequently about U.S. politics, economics, and economic and social policy. Lately, he has been sharing his opinions about Bidenomics(mostly good), the state of the Republican Party and democracy in America (mostly not good), and how the U.S. can emerge from its “coronacoma.” In this episode of The Thought Project podcast, he elaborates on many of his ideas, particularly how the U.S. can pull itself out of its COVID-induced economic slump, burnish its international reputation and standing, and address inequality through policies on health care, child care, and social security. He discusses what could make the post-pandemic U.S. economy come roaring back and shares his biggest fears. Listen in on a frank and wide-ranging discussion with one of today's most well-known public intellectuals.

Michael Javen Fortner is an assistant professor of political science at The Graduate Center, CUNY and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment, and he recently published a policy paper, “Reconstructing Justice: Race, Generational Divides, and the Fight Over ‘Defund the Police’.” In his book, Fortner looks at why Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a liberal Republican, embraced “draconian” drug laws and how they influenced the modern American criminal justice system and the country’s mass incarceration of Black men. Fortner explains in this podcast, “They instituted these mandatory minimum sentences that basically said if you got caught possessing a small amount of marijuana, of any drugs, you could go to prison for years and years. There's really no discretion in the courts that if you got caught, you lost a huge chunk of your life.” In this wide-ranging discussion about race and criminal justice

John Torpey is a presidential professor of sociology and history and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY. He hosts the International Horizons podcast. Professor Torpey is also a Forbes.com columnist, and in a recent Forbes column, he compared the current pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu. He discusses that column and its takeaways in this episode of The Thought Project. In this conversation, he elaborates on the differences in the circumstances, approaches to vaccines and preventive measures, and death rates. He discusses what will be most important as we emerge from this “catastrophe.”

The January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol “represented the greatest crisis of our democracy” since South Carolina’s secession prior to the Civil War, says historian and author Gunja SenGupta in this wide-ranging discussion of the latest events in Washington, D.C., and their precedent in the 1860s. An expert on the Civil War and slavery, SenGupta is a history professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY and Brooklyn College and the author of two books and a number of book chapters and articles. SenGupta describes the parallels between the events and attitudes that triggered the Civil War and the racism and dissention that came to a head on January 6th. She discusses America’s halting path to forging a multiracial democracy, which, she says, began only after the Civil War ended. William Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” SenGupta explains why we’re living with it and what we can learn from it.

New York City’s 55 transfer schools serve over 13,000 high school–aged students who have dropped out of or stopped attending their traditional high schools. Operating with constrained budgets and under the constant threat of closure, these schools, sometimes referred to as alternative high schools, nonetheless can transform the lives of the students they serve in large and small ways, according to a new study by Graduate Center, CUNY researchers. Two of the study’s authors, Graduate Center Professor Michelle Fine and Ph.D. student Mica Baum-Tuccillo, join The Thought Project to discuss their findings. Fine, a veteran social policy researcher and co-founder of the Public Science Project, which produced the study, admits that even she was surprised to find that “these schools were filled with care, but that wasn’t instead of academic expectations, it was a prerequisite.” Baum-Tucillo is a transfer school success story, having graduated from one and returning to teach at that same school. Fine and Baum-Tuc

Melissa Checker is the Hagedorn Professor of Urban Studies at Queens College and associate professor of Anthropology and Psychology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She joins The Thought Project to discuss her latest book, The Sustainability Myth: Environmental Gentrification and the Politics of Justice. The book unpacks the ways in which the so-called sustainable construction projects that accompany the gentrification of neighborhoods, particularly in Harlem and on Staten Island, harm low-income residents and people of color. She discusses the cases she studied and the environmental racism that she documented in her book, and she explains her coined term, “sustainaphrenia.” Checker also offers an assessment of President-Elect Joe Biden’s sustainability plans, noting the need to learn from past mistakes in order to achieve a truly equitable and sustainable society.