Ideas

How has choice become a defining feature of modern freedom? The option to choose where to live, what to buy, and what to believe was neither universally available nor consistently desired throughout history. Sophia Rosenfeld, Ed Kaufmann Founders' Circle Member (2014–15) in the School of Social Science, traces the evolution of choice from the seventeenth century to today.

Joëlle Vailly, Member (2019–20) in the School of Social Science, analyzes how expanding genetic databases in criminal justice systems transform our understanding of criminality and identity, highlighting tensions between surveillance capabilities and individual rights.

What do we really know about the experience of migrants at the border between Italy and France, the hazards they encounter, repression they endure, and the assistance they receive? These critical questions are addressed in Exile: Chronicle of the Border, a book by Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, and Anne-Claire Defossez, Visitor in the School.

With the press of a button, your favorite meal can be delivered to your door using GrubHub and you can hail a ride across town with Uber. Lindsey D. Cameron, Member (2023–24) in the School of Social Science, investigates the human impact of this ever-growing gig-economy. 

Introducing E. Tendayi Achiume, Ashvin B. Chhabra and Daniela Bonafede-Chhabra Member in the School of Social Science, whose research focuses on the international legal frameworks that govern migration, racism, and xenophobia. In this Q&A, she highlights IAS scholars who have influenced her work, the value of collaboration, and how she plans to expand her scope of analysis beyond nation states to transnational corporations during her time at IAS.

Geoff Mann, Member in the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Social Science (2023–24), describes his interest in modeling how the world works, and how uncertainties in this modeling process can be channeled from scientific research through the policy world and into the realm of politics.

Marc Aidinoff, Research Associate in the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Social Science (2023–25), discusses how interdisciplinary scholarship stretching across academia, industry, and civil society can work in practice.

During the 2023–24 academic year, the School of Social Science hosted a special theme year titled PLATFORM. To offer a view into their work, some of the theme year participants share thoughts on what the word "platform" means to them, and how "platform" serves as a useful concept in their research.

After the COVID-19 pandemic saw public health erupt into the world’s consciousness, Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, gave a series of lectures at the Collège de France in Paris proposing a new analysis of the moral and political issues at stake in the practice of public health. The lectures have been published by Polity Press in a book titled The Worlds of Public Health: Anthropological Excursions.

While some people were baking sourdough bread during the pandemic, Kristen Ghodsee, Member (2006–07) in the School of Social Science, studied utopian communities. In this interview, she discusses the resulting book, Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life, and her efforts to engage a non-academic audience through her writing and even TikTok!