Society And Culture

Each time Gitmo’s relevance was called into question—by Cuban opponents, and by Americans worried about the base’s diminishing returns, the trouble of running it and the toll it took on global goodwill—new purposes had been found with unfailing ingenuity, writes Paul Kramer, associate professor of history. Read More

A study by Vanderbilt University's Latin American Public Opinion Project shows that the use of social media for political purposes in the Americas can be an effective complement to conventional forms of political engagement. Read More

Economic prospects improved for small mountain farmers in Guatemala when consumers developed a taste for coffee brewed with beans grown at high altitude, according to a new study from the Vanderbilt Institute for Coffee Studies. Read More

Helena Simonett, associate director of the Center for Latin American Studies and adjunct assistant professor at the Blair School of Music, both at Vanderbilt University, believes that the saga of the “the little man’s piano” can tell us something aboutAmerica, especially in terms of class. Read More

A 25-year plan for Nashville's future includes a report on inclusivity written by Vanderbilt sociologist Dan Cornfield. Read More

Barely 17 percent have Internet access at home, according to the latest figures of the Americas Barometer, a survey by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project. Although the digital divide – the gap between those who can afford access and those who can’t – has narrowed in recent years, progress has been slow and Mexico still finds itself well below its peers. Read More

Rgw AmericasBarometer survey shows that Argentines may not trust Iran or a jointly established Truth Commission formed to discover the culprits behind a Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires 20 years ago. Read More

Watch: Bruce Morrill discusses what issues the papal conclave will consider when choosing its next leader on Fox News. Read More

New research shows that every year spent in prison lowers overall life expectancy two years. Read More

Through a set of experiments, Gordon Logan, Nashville musician Jerry Kimbrough and Matthew Crump (now of Brooklyn College-CUNY) have illustrated that guitarists – and players of other related instruments like mandolin, banjo and bass – tend to acquire their skills differently than most other musicians. Read More

Perhaps pulled more into mainstream consciousness by television shows such as “Hard Core Pawn” and “Pawn Stars,” pawn shops have several advantages over the payday loan operations that have become the most visible source of loans for those with poor credit ratings. Read More

Duke University announced that Blair alumna Angela Mace, now pursuing her Ph.D. in musicology at Duke under the advisement of R. Larry Todd, has proved the authorship of a mystery “lost sonata.” The piece has often been attributed to 19th-century composer Felix Mendelssohn, although scholars have suspected the piece was actually written by his sister, Fanny Hensel. Read More

Vanderbilt archaeologist Tiffiny Tung leads students to Peru where they assist in groundbreaking research into the Wari culture, a society that existed over 1500 years ago. Tung is the recipient of the 2011-12 Chancellor’s Cup.  The award is given annually for “the greatest contribution outside the classroom to undergraduate student-faculty… Read More

"My goal is to be the last fat black woman in my family," writes Alice Randall, writer in residence at Vanderbilt and author of "Ada's Rules." Read More

The responsibilities of family life tend to impede political participation by women in the Americas, a new study from the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University shows. Read More

Amy-Jill Levine explores the shared heritage of Christianity and Judaism. Read More

Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society, explains the science behind how the brain weighs decisions and forms political beliefs on the "Melissa Harris-Perry" show. Read More

Because racial identification is much more fluid in Latin America and the Caribbean than it is in the United States, researchers with Vanderbilt’s Latin American Public Opinion Project used actual skin color rather than racial identity to examine the effect of ethnicity on equality issues like class and educational attainment. Read More

Meet sociology professor Laura Carpenter, Vanderbilt's resident "sexpert." Her research interests include virginity loss and how chronic illness affects the sex lives of patients. Read More

Dale Andrews of Vanderbilt Divinity School is a proponent of social justice, a way of looking at theology that is diametrically opposed to prosperity theology. "Western preaching has gotten so tied up in privilege and power as evidence of God’s faith,” Andrews said. “I am of the opinion that God holds favor with those who are suffering.” Read More