Days before the election, faculty members of the Duke Department of Political Science gathered in the Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room to share their insights into the election. The event included former congressman David Price’s recounting of how Democratic leaders rallied to persuade President Joe Biden to step down only months earlier. The discussion circled around the theme of political trust: how it is secured — or lost — through public opinion and election integrity. John Aldrich, a scholar of political… read more » about Perspectives on the 2024 Election: a Duke Political Science Panel
An election year brings the return of a distinctive course merging media-making with the study of women in politics. In GSF 225S, Women and the Political Process, students get a hands-on approach to understanding how gender and politics interact, all while equipping them with skills in media production. Taught by Lauren Henschel and Rachel Gelfand, both instructors of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, and offered every two years, the course is especially relevant during election cycles, when… read more » about Gender, Politics and the Magic of Media, All in a Single Classroom
North Carolina is considered a close and must-win state for presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Both campaigns have spent millions in the state and held numerous rallies here.Four Duke experts Tuesday discussed the North Carolina electorate, the issues behind support for either candidate in North Carolina, polling and changing demographics.HOW MUCH FAITH SHOULD WE PUT IN POLLS?“Polls are not a tool that are sufficient for doing the work that we want them to do in a close election. They… read more » about Squishy Polls, Changing Demographics: Election Factors to Watch in NC
Duke is equipping students to respect differing viewpoints in a variety of ways. This Duke Today series examines the decline in civil discourse and Duke’s efforts to improve campus dialogue.Across this polarized country, college professors are grappling with the same dilemma: how to create a classroom environment where students feel free to speak their minds.Nasser Hussain has an answer, and you’ll forgive him if he sounds like a throwback to another era.“I establish ground rules,” says Hussain, associate director of the… read more » about Encouraging Civility
How do you turn a traditional academic department into one of the most exciting intellectual places in the country?For 90 minutes Friday, former and current Duke faculty, joined by dozens of staff and students sat entranced as they heard stories from a transformative moment at Duke, when the university made a significant and daring investment in the humanities during the 1980s.Leading the discussion were two of the key figures: Stanley Fish, who was hired to chair Duke’s Department of English in 1986, and his wife, Jane… read more » about Looking Back at Duke English in the ’80s
Black people’s severed relationship to land, water and air must be recovered for a thriving and joyful life, suggests artist and scholar Ashon T. Crawley. He asks, “Is there a wisdom, a thought practice, an approach to making things that lets us work against this severance, he asks, and prompt in us a way to move, think, and do otherwise?”“All my writing and my approach to art practices is about what I call otherwise possibility,” said Crawley, who has been appointed the Nannerl Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor at… read more » about Visiting Keohane Professor to Explore A Severed Relationship to Land
DURHAM, N.C. -- When we talk about the microbiome, most of us think of the trillions of microorganisms that live in our bodies, supporting everything from digestion to mental health.But plants have a world of microbes living on and inside them too. And evidence is beginning to emerge that these hidden residents play a key role in promoting plant health, in part by helping their immune system identify which bacteria to attack and which ones to tolerate.In a new study, researchers find that disruptions to the community of… read more » about Crop Diseases, Spoilage Can Hurt the Food Supply. Could Plant Prebiotics Help?
read more » about $30 Million The Duke Endowment Award to Strengthen AI and Computer Science at Duke
“This book begins with my mother’s story. But if I am honest, the book is entirely about her, and the experience of losing her in slow motion.” Jennifer Nash, Jean Fox O'Barr Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, has always written about personal experiences such as Black motherhood, Black feminism, intersectionality and pornography. But her new book, “How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory," feels different. It’s more visceral, raw. She writes with a different voice, one that bares her… read more » about A New Voice on Loss
When Victoria Szabo began working in the digital humanities in the 1990s, the Internet was just emerging, and inaccessible information was suddenly accessible. Rare texts and images that were seen primarily in libraries are now widely available. That prompted scholars to learn digital skills such as coding and programming. Duke’s arts and humanities faculty members harnessed this momentum in a variety of ways, launching a series of digital, long-term arts and history projects. Szabo, a research professor in the… read more » about Digital Humanities on the Rise
For the first time ever, this fall semester Duke’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences will offer an Indigenous United States language — Cherokee. The new course recognizes the intertwined history of Duke University and American Indian education. From 1882 to 1887, Trinity College, then in Randolph County, ran the federally funded Cherokee Industrial Indian Boarding School, enrolling 20 children of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The boarding school was closed in 1887, and Trinity moved to Durham a few years… read more » about Duke to Offer New Cherokee Language Course Series
Basketball coaches and players constantly seek ways to gain an edge over opponents. Imagine a team glancing at a tablet during a timeout, instantly accessing insights about play patterns or player performance, and using that information to shape the next offensive play or defensive formation. During the summer of 2024 at Duke, the students and faculty of the Data+ Analyzing Basketball Plays Using Computer Vision project are working with the coaching staff of Duke women’s… read more » about Data+ Students Aim to Give Duke Women’s Basketball an In-Game Advantage
No one likes to feel like they’re not getting the respect or courtesy they deserve. Think about the last time you felt talked down to, or treated as inferior, or got worse customer service than another person in line. But by the time most Americans reach adulthood, Blacks may have developed better coping skills for these disappointments than their white counterparts, potentially limiting the toll such experiences take on their mental health. That’s one of the key takeaways of a Duke University study looking at how… read more » about Black Americans Develop Mental Resilience to Discrimination Early
DURHAM, N.C. -- How would it feel to peer into the night sky and behold millions of galaxies across a vast swath of space? What would it be like to hunt for worlds beyond our solar system, or spot the fiery deaths of stars? In the next few years, two U.S.-funded telescopes will allow astronomers to find out. But before that happens, a Duke researcher has been leading an effort, under a broader project called OpenUniverse, to create the most realistic preview yet of what they will see once the missions get underway. In… read more » about Building a Prototype of the Cosmos