Faculty | University Categories | CAS in the Media

^{CAS in the Media} _{Arts and Sciences Media Headlines}

Smithsonian webcast on sports mascot racism

January 31, 2013

C. Richard King, professor in critical culture, gender and race studies, will join other commentators, authors and sports representatives for a live broadcast from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on Thursday, Feb. 7.

The event will include a series of panel discussions on racist stereotypes and cultural appropriation in American sports. In particular, the webinar will examine collegiate retirement of Native American sports references and some recent efforts to revive them despite the NCAA’s policy against “hostile and abusive” names and symbols.

King will discuss the origin myths behind mascots as part of the first panel beginning at 7:30 a.m. PST.

The National Museum of the American Indian regularly hosts intellectual and cultural events and symposia that include a select group of scholars and advocates, King said.

For a schedule of topics, list of panel members or to register for the webcast, go to nmai.si.edu/multimedia/webcasts/.

Prison Privatization Can Impede Job Growth

January 30, 2013

Building on earlier research in which they challenged the widespread belief that rural communities can create job growth by hosting state prisons, researchers at Washington State University have now found local job growth is often impeded in communities that become hosts to privately operated prisons.

“Our most recent research, which relies on a large, comprehensive national dataset, is consistent with our prior work showing that prisons really make little contribution to local economic growth,” said Gregory Hooks, professor of sociology at WSU. “Moreover, our study reveals that, in states moving quickly to turn over management of their prison systems to outside companies, the privatization of prisons often has a negative impact on employment prospects in host counties.”

Epigenetic Disease Inheritance Linked to Plastics and Jet Fuel

January 25, 2013

WSU researchers have lengthened their list of environmental toxicants that can negatively affect as many as three generations of an exposed animal’s offspring.

Writing in the online journal PLOS ONE, scientists led by WSU molecular biologist Michael Skinner document reproductive disease and obesity in the descendants of rats exposed to various plastic compounds (including BPA). In a separate article in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, they report the first observation of cross-generation disease from a widely used hydrocarbon jet fuel mixture the military refers to as JP8.

Both studies are the first of their kind to see obesity stemming from the process of “epigenetic transgenerational inheritance.

Professor’s expertise informs public about Mali invasion

January 19, 2013

Months of onsite investigative journalism by Washington State University English professor Peter Chilson into al-Qaeda’s takeover of northern Mali last spring have recently put him in high demand with the national and international media.

The flurry began when France intervened in the Malian crisis last week in an attempt to halt a further incursion by Islamists to gain control of Bamako, Mali’s capital city, and the rest of the country. The French intervention has received support from the international community, including the United States and several European nations.

The incursion coincided with the release of Chilson’s e-book, “We Never Knew Exactly Where: Dispatches from the Lost Country of Mali,” published by Foreign Policy magazine and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a media clearinghouse supporting writers who cover global conflicts for the U.S. media. The e-book, announced in Foreign Policy’s January/February issue, examines the implications of al-Qaeda’s newest base of operation and decries their devastation of ancient cultural icons. Links to selected Chilson radio interviews and to the e-book are available below.

“Peter Chilson’s work in Mali is some of the finest crisis reporting we’ve seen in a long time,” said Tom Hundley, senior editor, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. “Peter’s graceful writing, his deep knowledge of the subject, his gift for storytelling and willingness to go to where the real story was unfolding – all of this has made for a very rewarding piece of journalism…that will inevitably inform policy discussions on the future of Mali.”

Worldwide Attention for e-book on Mali

January 18, 2013

Months of onsite investigative journalism by English professor Peter Chilson into al-Qaeda’s takeover of northern Mali last spring have put him in high demand with the national and international media.

In his e-book, Chilson recounts how the Tuareg nationalist campaign, mounted with support from al Qaeda-affiliated jihadist groups…

Continue story →