Ideas

Corey Robin, Member in the School of Social Science, is a political theorist and journalist whose scholarship addresses a range of topics across modern economic and political thought, from the role of fear in the Western imagination to the black nationalist roots of Justice Clarence Thomas’s jurisprudence. He has published landmark work on the history of conservatism, including The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump. 

Paisley Currah, Robbert Dijkgraaf Member in the School of Social Science (2024–25), describes how the Institute for Advanced Study enriches conversation and research across languages and cultures, bringing about new ways of thinking about his work on gender and sexuality studies.

Ulla Berg, Member in the School of Social Science (2024–25), explores how anthropologists engage in "deep hanging out" to better understand different cultures and communities. She also discusses her involvement in conversations at the Institute for Advanced Study that address some of society’s most pressing questions.

E. Tendayi Achiume, Ashvin B. Chhabra and Daniela Bonafede-Chhabra Member in the School of Social Science (2024–25), describes how cross-disciplinary exchanges at the Institute for Advanced Study, including a flute performance by Shabaka Hutchings, inspired new perspectives on her research.

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.

The option to choose where to live, what to buy, and what to believe has been 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, asking how it has become a defining feature of modern freedom.

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.

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

E. Tendayi Achiume, Ashvin B. Chhabra and Daniela Bonafede-Chhabra Member in the School of Social Science, 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 during her time at IAS.

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.