Colloquy
Conversations with visionary scholars and thinkers from the Harvard PhD community
- Update frequency
- every 21 days
- Average duration
- 21 minutes
- Episodes
- 63
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
What Happens When Your Brain Goes to the Supermarket and Other Stories of Human Adaptability
We all want to live as long and as well as possible. Diet and exercise are crucial, but how can we make sense of the flood of information, which sometimes seems to contradict itself? More importantly…
Living Tombs: Toward a Fluid Understanding of Architectural Space
2025 Harvard Horizons Scholar Sergio Alarcón Robledo explores ancient Egyptian architecture through an interdisciplinary approach that sits at the crossroads of archaeology, Egyptology, and architect…
Empire of String: Unraveling the Enigma of Inka Khipus
The Inka Empire, the largest in the pre-Columbian Americas, is renowned for its impressive engineering feats, including an extensive road network and monumental architecture. Although the Inkas did n…
Embracing Twilight: Older Women Poets of the Slavic World and the Unfurling of Their Voices
The figure of the young, tragic male poet has long dominated cultural narratives about artistic brilliance and early death. But what if poetic genius deepens, rather than fades, with age? In this tal…
Pitfalls of Anthropomorphism: Misunderstanding AI’s Potential
Raphaël Raux's 2025 Harvard Horizon project, "Human Learning about AI," conducted in collaboration with fellow PhD student Bnaya Dreyfuss, explores how people often assume AI thinks like a human, whi…
Law versus Democracy: Why Courts Defend or Undermine Democracy in Israel, Turkey, and Beyond
As a PhD candidate in government at Harvard's Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2025 Harvard Horizons Scholar Andrew O'Donohue explores the complexities of democratic resilienc…
Sappho Lost and Found: Reading Sappho in the Renaissance
2025 Harvard Horizons Scholar Katherine Horgan explores the legacy of the ancient Greek poet Sappho in her project, "Living Sappho: Imitation, Imagination, and Revivification in Early Modern England.…
How Your Neighbors Shape Your Politics
We hate each other more than we used to, at least where politics is concerned. Measures of effective polarization, the animosity that Democrats have for Republicans and vice versa, have increased dra…
Tackling the Global Youth Mental Health Challenge: Lessons from Psychotherapy Research in Kenya
2025 Harvard Horizons Scholar Katherine Venturo-Conerly is on a mission to revolutionize access to effective mental health care—particularly for young people. Her research project, "Tackling the Glob…
How the Problems of Home Pierce the College Bubble
The US Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard made it illegal for colleges and universities to use race as a factor in choosing their incoming classes. As a result, sc…
A Step Closer to Personalized Medicine
Imagine your doctor could precisely predict your personal risk of disease, diagnose the cause of illness with pinpoint accuracy when it did occur, and develop an effective treatment plan with low sid…
A Cheaper Way to Make Drugs?
The cost of prescription drugs is high—particularly in the US where consumers pay nearly three times more than those in 33 other nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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How Elite Universities Grapple with the Legacy of Slavery—and Why It Matters
The history of slavery in the United States, including at the country's colleges and universities, is deeply disturbing and painful. But Professor Sara Bleich, PhD ’07, says it’s critical that our so…
Is AI Coming for Your Job?
Technological disruption of human occupations is nothing new. In recent decades, blue-collar occupations have borne the brunt of the upheavals—think of all the factory workers now working at Wal-Mart…
Bob Dylan: From "A Complete Unknown" to "A Prophet Without God"
With filmgoers buzzing about the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, University of Pennsylvania Professor Jeffrey Edward Green, PhD ’07, says that the legendary singer and songwriter is more than a…
Beyond 2024—Feminism and the Future of US Politics
“The future is female.” That was the slogan printed on tee shirts in the early 1970s at the first women’s bookstore in New York City. Fifty years ago, it seemed to be true. The Equal Rights Amendment…
How Reliable Are Election Forecasts?
Just after Labor Day, American University Professor and Harvard Griffin GSAS alumnus, Allan Lichtman predicted a victory for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. It w…
How to Succeed in Business by Failing—Intelligently
Fail fast, fail frequently, and learn from it. That's the mantra adopted by many Silicon Valley firms in recent years. Fine. But would you tell that to your emergency room doctor for someone who's ma…
The ‘Invisible Threat’ Contaminating Our Water
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent, they’re everywhere, and they're probably bad for you. PFAS are probably bad for you. Some of the detrimental health effects associated with …
Testing and the Origins of Big Data
You’re being tested. You don’t know the criteria used to determine your score—or even your results. The test is being administered not by a human teacher or moderator, but by machines. And it’s going…