The Institute for Human Sciences

Physical violence and political repression continue to torment Belarusian streets. Ongoing activism incurs a heavy, emotional toll. Could solace and stamina be found in literature, metaphysical reflections on the question of evil?

Sadopopulism and the politics of eternity: Shalini Randeria and Timothy Snyder discuss why it’s impossible to talk sensibly about Trump without invoking the history of fascism.

How can intense description of what is irreducibly particular help us to extract elements that are universal? Parallels between the child separations at the US–Mexico border and the experiences of Holocaust survivors prompt historian Marci Shore to ask what we can and cannot understand by thinking in comparisons with the past.

The distinctions between exploiter and exploited are ill-defined, keeping small-scale poppy producers locked in criminality in northern Mexico. The military, drug trade intermediaries and an inaccessible legal framework all conspire to marginalize those who experience violence on a daily basis.