Sometimes good people make bad choices. It’s a part of life because we are human.
Yet, over the past decade, characters doing just that have become the focus of many television dramas. Why are antiheroes as a character archetype so abundant and popular on the small screen?
Have you ever taken ginger to sooth an upset stomach or been needled by an acupuncturist? These and other forms of traditional Chinese medicine have found favor with a surprising number of U.S. adults. Surprising, too, is the intertwined history of medical traditions in the East and West.
Assistant Professor of History Bridie Andrews-Minehan is well acquainted with the opposing and inseparable nature -- the yin and yang – of the two traditions. As she puts it: “There is no way to draw a boundary between Western medicine and Chinese medicine, in either direction.”
History, it is said, is written by the winners. At the dawn of the modern era, those authors were the great colonial powers. The nations of Europe, and later the United States, fired up the machines and know-how of the Industrial Revolution and carved out economic empires across the world.
A new book by Associate Professor of History Cyrus Veeser tells another side of the story.
Dipayan Biswas wants to know what you like. More to the point, he wants to know why you like it. The associate professor of marketing has studied people’s responses in sampling “experiential” products -- beverages, music, fragrances, and the like – which appeal directly to the senses.
His research into the factors that influence consumer preferences has turned up a surprise: A product’s impression on the taste buds or ear drums matters less than you would expect. More influential, perhaps, is the order in which products are sampled.
A hurricane, tornado or flood that destroys homes and property goes beyond individual harm. Entire communities suffer.
In the aftermath of an event like Hurricane Sandy, which devastated the New York-New Jersey shore in fall 2012, we naturally ask how people can rebuild their lives. But on a broader level: what makes one community or region better at responding to a natural disaster and surviving its aftermath?
Jeff Livingston would like to change the way that fellow economists see the world. His research challenges the “rational pursuit of self-interest” as the standard driver of market behavior. Where did he find evidence to back an alternative view that incorporates trust? On eBay.
Malaria, that ancient scourge, survives. Over the past century, as sanitation and medical advances have conquered or controlled other diseases, malaria has resisted eradication. In 2010, the disease infected about 219,000,000 people and killed 660,000, almost all in developing countries.
Why?
When Kristin Sorensen made her first doctoral research trip to Chile, she packed light. “I used a cardboard box for a table, and bought a couple of pieces of camping furniture for the living room,” she says of the 2002 visit. “I didn’t want to invest in a lot, because I knew I’d be leaving soon.”
Now, seven years and eight return trips later, Sorensen has invested plenty. The Bentley assistant professor of global studies has built a career around her passion to understand Chile’s struggles in the aftermath of dictatorship.