ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Social Difference Columbia University ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Social Difference Columbia University

Vicky Murillo Interviews Ana Ochoa for Latin America @ Columbia Podcast

Environmental Justice, Belief Systems, and Aesthetic Experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean working group co-directors discuss major themes around Latin American history, culture, and politics.

Vicky Murillo, professor of Political Science and International Affairs interviewed fellow Environmental Justice, Belief Systems, and Aesthetic Experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean working group co-director Professor and Chair of the Department of Music, Ana Ochoa. The interview can be found on the new podcast Latin @ Columbia, hosted by Vicky Murillo, discussing major themes around Latin American history, culture, and politics.

Find the full podcast interview here.
For more on the Environmental Justice, Belief Systems, and Aesthetic Experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean working group visit their project page.


Vicky Murillo is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Columbia University. Her work focuses on distributive politics, electoral behavior, institutional weakness, Latin American politics, agricultural and conservation policies.

Dr. Ana Ochoa is an ethnomusicologist in the departments of Music and Anthropology at Columbia University. She writes on music and cultural policy, forced silence and armed conflict, and genealogies of listening and sound in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her current projects explore the bioacoustics of life and death in colonial histories of the Americas.



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WOMEN'S HEART DISEASE Social Difference Columbia University WOMEN'S HEART DISEASE Social Difference Columbia University

Love My Heart App Featured in Article About Heart Disease in Women

The app is the brainchild of the Women's Heart Disease Awareness working group.

Dr. Natalie Bello and Dr. Sonia Tolani, project directors of the working group, launched the app in May of 2019 to raise awareness amongst women about—and to prevent—heart disease. The app “helps the user devise a plan with realistic goals to support healthy weight, healthy diet, exercise, and smoking cessation.” Read the article here.

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MENSTRUAL HEALTH Social Difference Columbia University MENSTRUAL HEALTH Social Difference Columbia University

Chris Bobel Quoted on the Topic of Menstrual Activism

Menstrual Health working group fellow appears on Equal Times.

“Shame, silence and secrecy, after all, is the root of what makes menstruation a challenge for everyone, especially those living on the margins,”says Chris Bobel, Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group faculty fellow. Read more in Equal Times here, on the topic of menstrual dignity and justice, directly related to the CSSD working group.


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UNPAYABLE DEBT Social Difference Columbia University UNPAYABLE DEBT Social Difference Columbia University

Frances Negrón-Muntaner’s Art Installation and Alternative Currency Comes to East Harlem

The project will be on view at El Museo del Barrio from September 21 to 30, 2019.

CSSD Executive Committee member, and former Unpayable Debt working group co-director, Frances Negrón-Muntaner brings her interactive art installation to East Harlem for 10 days at the end of this September. Originally launched in Puerto Rico, the project was also shown in the Lower East Side before coming to El Barrio.

Born in response to the Puerto Rican debt crisis, and building on the work of the Unpayable Debt working group, the Valor y Cambio project proposes an alternative currency that, thanks to the participation of local establishments, is usable to buy products from food to museum tickets. Read more here, and visit the project’s website here.


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GEOGRAPHIES OF INJUSTICE Social Difference Columbia University GEOGRAPHIES OF INJUSTICE Social Difference Columbia University

Anupama Rao Organizes Second Annual Ambedkar Lectures

The first event of the series, on ‘Race, Caste, and American Pragmatism’, is to take place on October 17.

The Institute of Comparative Literature and Society will host the Second Annual Ambedkar Lectures, the first event of which takes place on October 17. The Ambedkar Lectures are organized by Geographies of Injustice co-director Anupama Rao.

Read more about the event here.

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ON THE FRONTLINES Social Difference Columbia University ON THE FRONTLINES Social Difference Columbia University

New Blog Post on Working Group Research Trip to West Africa

On the Frontlines Coordinator, Jeremy Orloff, reflects on recent experiences in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

On the Frontlines: Nursing Leadership in Pandemics working group Coordinator, Jeremy Orloff, reflects on his recent experiences in Freetown, Sierra Leone and Morovia, Liberia in a blog post for CSSD blog, Social Difference Online. The working group’s trip to West Africa centered around their efforts to retrieve oral histories from local nurses and midwives who had been active during the 2014-2016 Ebola crisis.

To read the full post and see pictures from the trip visit Social Difference Online.

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MENSTRUAL HEALTH Social Difference Columbia University MENSTRUAL HEALTH Social Difference Columbia University

Menstrual Health and Gender Justice Working Group Receives Teaching Award

The Provost’s Interdisciplinary Teaching Award will go toward developing a course on “Menstruation, Gender, and Rights: Interdisciplinary Approaches.”


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The Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group is one of three winners for the annual Provost’s Interdisciplinary Teaching Award, which funds the creation of a new course with up to $20,000. The course will be taught by working group Faculty Fellows Noémie Elhadad, Lauren Houghton, Anja Tolonen, Chris Bobel and Director Inga Winkler, each from different disciplines. More information on the course, “Menstruation, Gender, and Rights: Interdisciplinary Approaches,” will be made available on course listings in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, read more here.

More on the Spring 2019 Interdisciplinary Teaching Awardees can be found here.

For more on the Menstrual Health working group check out their blog, like them on Facebook and follow on Twitter.

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UNPAYABLE DEBT Social Difference Columbia University UNPAYABLE DEBT Social Difference Columbia University

Frances Negrón-Muntaner Gives Interviews and Writes Article on Political Dissent in Puerto Rico

CSSD Executive Committee member appears on The Takeaway, CNN en Español, and Dissent Magazine.

Professor of English and Comparative Literature, CSSD Executive Committee member, and former Unpayable Debt working group co-director Frances Negrón-Muntaner (CSER) gave two interviews, one on WNYC’s The Takeaway and another on CNN en Español, about recent protests in Puerto Rico that led to the resignation of now-former governor Ricardo Rosselló. She also wrote a piece on frustrated expectations and newfound hope in the wake of the protests for Dissent Magazine.

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PRECISION MEDICINE Social Difference Columbia University PRECISION MEDICINE Social Difference Columbia University

Call for Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, and Culture 2019-2020 Graduate Fellowship Applications

Applications due by September 23, 2019

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CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, and Culture
2019-2020 Graduate Fellowship

Columbia University’s working group on Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, and Culture (PMEPC) is seeking graduate fellows for the 2019-2020 academic year. Graduate students from any of Columbia’s schools whose work is related to any aspect of precision medicine are invited and encouraged to apply. 

Project Description:

Precision Medicine—an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person—raises a myriad of cultural, political, and historical questions that the humanities are uniquely positioned to address. As part of its overall Precision Medicine Initiative, and specifically, it’s Precision Medicine & Society arm, Columbia has initiated a broad based exploration of questions that precision medicine raises in law, ethics, the social sciences, and the humanities, which establishes the University as the center for scholarship relating to precision medicine and society. The Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture Project is the first of its kind to bring Columbia faculty from the humanities, social sciences, law, and medicine into dialogue with leading scholars from the United States and abroad to discuss how social scientific and humanistic questions might enhance our understanding of the ethical, social, legal, and political implications of precision medicine research, and to inform social scientists and humanists about evidence, evaluation, and research outcomes from serious interdisciplinary engagement with this emerging medical field. 

The working group provides an excellent opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary discussion, networking, and other work related to recent developments and the future of precision medicine and society. The project is co-directed by Maya Sabatello, LLB, PhD (Columbia University Irving Medical Center) and Gil Eyal, PhD (Columbia’s Department of Sociology).

Fellowship Requirements:

Graduate fellows will be expected to attend all meetings (4 public events followed by 4 working group meetings led by visiting scholars during the academic year); read circulated materials prior to the meetings and take part in conversation; provide an oral response to one of the scheduled speakers; write a short blog about that event; assist with promotion and publicity for meetings on Columbia’s campuses; and otherwise support and facilitate the work of the group. In addition, graduate fellows will work with the PMEPC’s directors to develop a manuscript on a topic related to precision medicine and society and present on it to the working group and the Precision Medicine & Society Steering Committee. 

The schedule for the public events is enclosed. The working group meetings will take place in the morning following the public event.

Fellows will receive a $2,500 stipend for the year. Only Columbia graduate students are eligible. Applicants with disabilities and applicants belonging to minority groups are encouraged to apply. 

To apply, please submit your CV and a one-page letter describing your research interests, skills and how the PMEPC’s Graduate Fellowship will advance your professional trajectory to Daniel Wojtkiewicz (dnw2116@columbia.edu) by Sep. 23, 2019. Questions about this fellowship and the project more generally can be sent to the directors’, Maya and Gil as well. Successful applicants will be notified by Oct. 7, 2019.


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MENSTRUAL HEALTH Social Difference Columbia University MENSTRUAL HEALTH Social Difference Columbia University

Listen to Chris Bobel on The Takeaway Podcast

Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group fellow discusses workplace menopause policies.

Chris Bobel, Menstrual Health working group fellow and Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, along with Deborah Garlick, director of Menopause in the Workplace, joined The Takeaway podcast to discuss the glaring disparity between US and UK workplace menopause policies. In both countries, women over 45 make up a significant part of the workforce. Many such women are negatively affected by physical and psychological changes of menopause while at work. Whereas no politicians have taken up this cause in the US, in the UK politicians of both major parties have begun to address the lack of policies to help menopausal women.

Find the full podcast here.
For more on the Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group visit their blog and project page.
You can also find them on Facebook and Twitter.
Chris Bobel’s latest book is The Managed Body: Developing Girls and Menstrual Health in the Global South.

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QUEER THEORY Social Difference Columbia University QUEER THEORY Social Difference Columbia University

Tey Meadow Named Finalist for the 2018 C. Wright Mills Award

Queer Theory working group fellow’s book Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century up for prestigious honor.

Tey Meadow, Associate Professor of Sociology and member of CSSD working group Queer Theory, was named a finalist for the 2018 C. Wright Mills Award for her new book Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century (University of California Press, 2018). The Society for the Study of Social Problems gives out the award, established in 1964, to works that best exemplify outstanding social science research.

See the full list of finalists here.
For more on the Queer Theory working group visit their project page.

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