BornCurious

When Devi Lockwood, then a Harvard undergraduate, encountered the papers of the poet Cora Brooks in the Schlesinger Library, she couldn’t have known that the discovery would spark an in-person friendship with a woman her grandmother’s age. In this episode, she talks about how that friendship developed—and the lasting gifts it provided—along with archives, activism, and the power of unexpected discoveries. Released on May 1, 2025. Episode Transcript Guest Devi Lockwood is an editor, a journalist, and the author of 1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement from Around the World (S&S/ Simon Element, 2021). Her writing has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Teen Vogue, and WIRED, and she currently serves as the commentary and ideas editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Related Content Radcliffe Moments: Friendship through the Archives Devi Lockwood’s personal website New York Times: The Trick in Life Is to Keep Moving Schlesinger Library: Papers of Cora Brooks 1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement from Around the World (S&S/ Simon Element, 2021) Credits Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine. Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI. Alan Catello Grazioso is your guest host, the executive producer of BornCurious, and the senior multimedia manager at HRI. Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI. Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student. Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student. Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI. Special thanks to Dartmouth College, namely Mike Murray and Signe Taylor, for generously providing their media studio, and to Cabin 3 Media—especially sound recordist Jeff Hayash—for their expert work in recording and post-production.

The poetry of Gabeba Baderoon often reaches into memory and the small moments that show the complexity of love. In this episode, Baderoon talks about what spurred her to try the art form, reads from her previous work, and shares how memory plays into her next collection, on which she’s working this year.Released on April 17, 2025.Episode TranscriptGuestGabeba Baderoon is a poet and an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, African studies, and comparative literature at the Pennsylvania State University, where she codirects the African Feminist Initiative. The History of Intimacy (Kwela Books, 2018) is her third published collection, and at Radcliffe, she is working on her fourth.Related ContentFellowship Bio: Gabeba BaderoonFellowship Talk: “Autobiography of Sand: Relief Map of a Drifting Mind”The History of Intimacy (Kwela Books, 2018)A Hundred Silences (Kwela Books, 2006)CreditsIvelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is your guest host and the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

A chance encounter with an engineering journal changed the life trajectory of Diana Dabby, who was then working as a concert pianist. Now, Dabby uses electrical engineering to innovate musical works that have variation at their center. In this episode, she talks about her career and approach to various projects.Released on April 3, 2025.Episode TranscriptGuestDiana Dabby is a concert pianist, a composer, and an engineer who teaches at Olin College of Engineering, where she is the music program director and a professor of electrical engineering. At Radcliffe, she is working on a potentially disruptive technology for variation of musical works; a “variation concert” in which seat location determines what is heard; and a book about artists with a knack for science.Related ContentFellowship Bio: Diana DabbyCantoVarioYouTube: Olin Conductorless Orchestra performs GershwinYouTube: Parallel Lives—Distant MirrorsEvent: Three-Part Invention: From Lab to ImpactCreditsIvelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is your guest host, the executive producer of BornCurious, and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

In his recent—and timely—lecture, Gary Gerstle looks beyond the figure of Donald Trump to inquire into the roots of America’s authoritarian turn. In it, he dissects the events, policies, and resentments that have led to the breakdown of the neoliberal political order, under which the United States has functioned for the past 40 years, and energized the right.Released on March 20, 2025.Episode TranscriptGuestsTomiko Brown-Nagin is the dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.Beverly Gage is the John Gaddis Professor of History at Yale University and an expert in modern American political history.Gary Gerstle, a historian of modern America, is the 2024–2025 Joy Foundation Fellow at Radcliffe and the Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus and Paul Mellon Director of Research in American History at the University of Cambridge. He has published eight books, most recently The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era (Oxford University Press, 2022).Related ContentFellowship Bio: Gary GerstleInstitutional Bio: Beverly GageA Deep Look into Trump-Era AmericaEvent: America’s Authoritarian TurnReport of Harvard University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working GroupCreditsMax Doyle is the A/V technician at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI).Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

As part of a pair of programs featuring open dialogue about issues related to the Middle East, Aslı Ü. Bâli participated in a conversation with Asim Ijaz Khwaja about modern Arab and Muslim identities in the context of university, local, and worldwide communities and events.Released on March 6, 2025.Episode TranscriptGuestsAslı Ü. Bâli is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the president of the Middle East Studies Association.Asim Ijaz Khwaja is the Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development at Harvard Kennedy School, faculty director at the Harvard Center for International Development, and cochair of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias at Harvard University.Related ContentEvent: Conversation with Aslı Ü. BâliAslı Ü. Bâli Institutional BiographyAsim Ijaz Khwaja Institutional BiographyEpisode 403: Conversation with Noah FeldmanCreditsIvelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

As part of a pair of programs featuring open dialogue about issues related to the Middle East, Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin sat down with Noah Feldman to discuss his new book, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2024).Released on March 6, 2025.Episode TranscriptGuestsTomiko Brown-Nagin is the dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.Noah Feldman is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard Law School.David Stern is the Harry Starr Professor of Classical and Modern Jewish and Hebrew Literature and a professor of comparative literature at Harvard University. He was the 2011–2012 Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute.Related ContentNoah Feldman’s Institutional BiographyTomiko Brown-Nagin’s Institutional BiographyEpisode 402: Conversation with Aslı Ü. BâliTo Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish PeopleReport of Harvard University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group David Stern’s Institutional BiographyCreditsMax Doyle is the A/V technician at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI).Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Every year around this time, New Orleans clads itself in the green, purple, and gold of carnival, which culminates in Mardi Gras. But the celebration is much more than a bacchanalia—it’s a citywide expression of community. In this episode, we speak to a guest intimately familiar with these traditions, especially how they play out in the city’s Black communities.Released on February 20, 2025.Episode transcriptGuestKim Vaz-Deville, a scholar in residence at Dillard University in New Orleans, conducts research on the lives of African Americans in New Orleans from the early 20th century to the present. As the 2023–2024 Lillian Gollay Knafel Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, she worked on her second book about New Orleans Black Mardi Gras traditions, “The Art of Resistance.”Related ContentOnline Exhibition: Mystery in Motion: African American Masking and Spirituality in Mardi GrasFellowship Biography: Kim Vaz-DevilleFellow’s Presentation: The Art of Resistance: Sacred Visual Creations of New Orleans’ African American Mardi Gras MaskersThe “Baby Dolls”: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition (LSU Press, 2023)CreditsIvelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media, including sound engineer Jeff Hayash and editors Katie Toulmin and Justin Callahan, for their contributions to the production and editing of this episode.

What is sex for? This is only one of the questions we must consider to be better sexual citizens. In this episode, we talk to an anthropologist who hopes that thinking through such questions will alleviate the problem of sexual assault in the context of our institutional lives, such as college. And she tells us about her current work, a case study.Released on December 19, 2024.Episode TranscriptGuestJennifer S. Hirsch is a professor of sociomedical sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who works at the intersection of social science and public health. Hirsch’s research examines gender, sexuality, and migration; the anthropology of love; social dimensions of HIV; and sexual- and gender-based violence. She is the coauthor, with Shamus Khan, of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus (W. W. Norton, 2020), named an NPR book of the year.Related ContentWebsite: Sexual CitizensFellowship Biography: Jennifer S. HirschCreditsIvelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

More than 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since the late 1960s—who are they, and why have they gone missing? We talked to two Radcliffe fellows who have devoted their work to telling this history, from an institutional as well as a personal level, as a way to honor the disappeared and empower their families.This episode contains intense subject matter that may be distressing to some listeners.Released on December 12, 2024.Episode TranscriptGuestsRosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, a professor and senior researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, is an anthropologist whose work promotes indigenous and women’s rights in Latin America. She is working on an ethnographic account of family collectives searching for their disappeared loved ones throughout Mexico. She was the 2023–2024 Perrin Moorhead Grayson and Bruns Grayson Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.Oscar Lopez is is a writer and freelance journalist who covers human rights, politics, and violence. His book in progress examines disappearances in Mexico—and how they became both state policy and organized crime practice. He was the 2023–2024 Shutzer Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.Related ContentFellowship Biography: Rosalva Aída Hernández CastilloFellowship Biography: Oscar LopezFellowship Talk: Digging for Hope in Mexico: A Feminist Ethnography in the Land of Mass GravesFellowship Talk: And Then They Vanished: A Hidden History of Mexico’s DisappearedPodcast: Wounds across BordersReporting by Oscar Lopez in the New York TimesCreditsIvelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Sean Hennessy is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, members of our community delivered “lightning talks”—seven minutes on a particular topic delivered by an expert in the field. In this mini episode, Ayodele Casel, whose “unquestionable radiance” has been called out by the New York Times, shares her thoughts on creativity.This episode was recorded on September 27, 2024.Released on December 5, 2024.Episode TranscriptGuestAyodele Casel is a tap dancer and choreographer. She was the 2019–2020 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at Radcliffe and can be seen in the American Repertory Theater production Diary of a Tap Dancer from December 12, 2024, to January 4, 2025.Related ContentDiary of a Tap DancerAyodele Casel: Personal WebsiteArticle: “Now That She Has the Floor”Ayodele Casel: Fellowship BiographyRadcliffe Event: “Diary of a Tap Dancer”CreditsIvelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.