Rethinking the Scopes Trial: Cultural Conflict, Media Spectacle, and Circus Politics

Media practices and urban politics: rethinking the powers of the media-urban nexus

The spatial imaginations of media studies and urban studies are becoming increasingly aligned, illustrated by a growing and diverse literature on what can be identified as a media-urban nexus. This nexus has attracted scholarly interest not only as a social or cultural phenomenon, but also as a site of emergent political dynamics. We reconstruct the shared terrain in which the phenomenology of ...

Politics as a three-ring circus

Though they may share a community, on some issues, the University and the residents of West Philadelphia appear to be worlds apart. On June 18, Penn announced that it would enter into a partnership with both the School District of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia federation of Teachers to establish a University-assisted public school just off-campus, at 42nd and Spruce streets. Under the terms...

Policy Arena Rethinking Climate Refugees and Climate Conflict: Rhetoric, Reality and the Politics of Policy Discourse

This paper critically examines the perceived threat of ‘climate refugees’ and ‘climate conflict’. It locates the ideological roots of these concepts in development theories and policy narratives about demographically induced migration, environmental refugees and environmental security. While alarmist rhetoric around climate refugees and conflict has been deployed by a variety of actors, includi...

Rethinking the Politics of Downtown Development

In the political science literature, downtown redevelopment has long been seen as the project of a region’s economic elites. But in recent years, large corporations, banks, and department stores have in many cases abandoned central business districts, and downtowns are now more likely to be developed as centers of entertainment and culture, or as residential districts. This article posits that ...

Organ Donation Awareness: Rethinking Media Campaigns