Dispatch number two: The State of Science in 2025 Join us for Salon de Résistance on September 25 at Black Iris for a conversation about science in America. Scientific progress shouldn't be optional. From vaccines and clean energy to space exploration and evolutionary...
Bangalore, the capital of India's southern Karnataka state is an incredibly beautiful, vibrant, confusing, contradictory, and stunning piece of the country. As a friend once told me, "India will attack your senses." He was very, very correct. Living here for one month now, I've been able to pick up on a few of the more common everyday...
Deeply German location names like Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Straße and Ausspannplatz will soon be redubbed in Germany after leaders of the decolonization movement such as Chief Kuaima Riruako, the founding father of the Herero people, and Augistinho Neto, first President of Angola. Community activists in Berlin’s Afrikansche Viertel (“African...
Stepping off the plane onto Turkish soil felt like being transported to another world. Like hundreds of millions of travellers before me, I had come to see Istanbul, the gateway between Europe and the East. Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire for almost 500 years, is still a major cultural site for Muslims and Christians, although tourism...
*This is a developing story. Germany, ever struggling with their historical demons, has just seen two days of clashes between far-right wing protesters, neo-Nazis, counter-protesters, anti-fascists, and the police. The clashes have taken place in the town of Chemnitz, a town in Saxony in Eastern Germany. Having started after an alleged lethal...
Last summer, my VCU study-abroad students and I stood in the dim but pretty interior of a little house made of corrugated tin in the Soweto township of Johannesburg, South Africa. With us was Thulani Madondo, a 2012 CNN hero, a vibrant, fast-talking South African who was recognized for founding the Kliptown Youth Program and supporting...
Just a couple years ago, most Americans assumed that Nazis had been firmly relegated to the past, never to reappear outside the confines of history books. When Nazis did preoccupy the American mind they kindly restricted themselves to playing the role of evil villains in video games or on the silver screen. Unlike the fictitious Nazis of our...
I had the opportunity in May 2017 to visit and stay with some international friends working abroad in Taipei, Taiwan. This would be my first trip to Asia, and I was beyond excited to practice street photography outside of the United States. As a Republic of China, Taiwan is a democratic country, which helped with mentally preparing for the...
The city of Johannesburg, South Africa was literally built on a gold mine. Much of South Africa’s wealth was amassed through gold and diamond mining that began in the late 1800s, and it was this mining that shaped the social and political landscape for South Africans for generations. Gold mining also led to the discovery of South Africa’s...
Like Richmond, Lebanon’s capital city Beirut is still grappling with the legacy of civil war. Unlike those in Richmond, though, many of Beirut’s current residents lived through the most recent civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990. The political structure that exacerbated the tensions of the war still exists. Lebanon’s 18 official sect...
