The future viability of the geosciences is challenged, since as a community we continue to lack demographic diversity representative of the wider population. Fundamentally, dominant cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors contribute to the lack of diversity and those factors typically change slowly over generations. Proposals for more…

The connection between humor and aesthetic experience has already been recognized by several thinkers and aesthetic educators. For instance, humor theorist John Morreall writes that "humor is best understood as itself a kind of aesthetic experience, equal in value at least to any other kind of aesthetic experience." For Morreall, both humor and…

This article presents the address delivered by the author to Columbia college students elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society on May 18, 2009. In the address, the author talks about the work he had done that might be of interest to these students. He emphasizes two kinds of work that are interlocking, yet distinct: (1) teaching; and (2)…

As people commemorate ACT UP and examine its memory in public cultures, the 2011 revival of "The Normal Heart" (TNH) and the rhetorical labor undertaken to evoke political emotionalities inside and outside of the theater provides one site for analyzing how direct action politics, both past and present, are imagined as a kairotic response to…

This article presents cases from informal situations of grief and a project called "I and death". These cases suggest that different worldviews affect the process of grief, and that children often do not get the support they need in terms of spiritual care. This affects attitudes towards grief in adulthood. Social practices of encountering death…

Autistic means a subject has limited affect or may be without affect altogether. Though traditionally individuals are described as autistic, the authors find it increasingly apparent that American society is becoming autistic as a whole, as citizens are desensitized to needs of neighbors near and far, losing the commensurate loyalty of being in…

Research showing that activation of negative stereotypes can impair the performance of stigmatized individuals on a wide variety of tasks has proliferated. However, a complete understanding of the processes underlying these stereotype threat effects on behavior is still lacking. The authors examine stereotype threat in the context of research on…

Comments on the article by Robert Bornstein, "The Complex Relationship Between Dependency and Domestic Violence,". Bornstein's attention to both types of dependency and women's experiences of domestic violence. I believe that his discussion of these complex relationships and social policy recommendations may be enhanced with a more integrated and…

Presents a reply by Robert Bornstein to comments from Chronister and regarding his article, "The complex relationship between dependency and domestic violence: Converging psychological factors and social forces." In addition to raising some important issues regarding the link between dependency and domestic violence, the comments by Chronister and…

While sitting on a bench outside the university's museum grappling with his own emotional numbness and inability to comprehend the traumatic events of 9-11, John Wittman watched a group of 4 students circling one of the main buildings on campus with an American flag on the back of the roll bar of a truck. Having thought about the flag-waving…

This book explores the construction of subjectivity and advances a theoretical account of the processes through which subjectivities are constituted in the context of a two-fold study of black subjectivity. The first three chapters are devoted to the deconstruction of the black subject construed by scientific psychology, and the remainder is…

This paper names and describes a common, growing, and dangerous psychological syndrome: Youth Violence Syndrome (YVS). YVS is characterized by at least nine behaviors: (1) hopelessness; (2) a complete or great disregard for the laws followed by most Americans; (3) a short temper combined with a lack of empathy; (4) a desire for respect from others…

This is the report of a task force formed to bring psychological understanding to bear on the various aspects of the development of nuclear arms and nuclear energy and the threat they pose to human physical, mental, and emotional health. The first of seven articles considers the sociopsychological aspects of the nuclear arms race. Other articles…