Women Who Wrote About a New American Nation

Fall 2018

Hilary Gallito
Photo of Hilary Gallito by Mike Ciesielski

Most women in Revolutionary-era America had little education and few opportunities to write about the young country that men were forging around them. 

Hilary Gallito ’25 is studying the words of three remarkable women— two wealthy and white, one formerly enslaved—who managed to make their voices heard. 

Catharine Macaulay, Phillis Wheatley, and Mercy Otis Warren all lived in and wrote about Revolutionary America, making connections to ancient Greek and Roman ideas as they publicly examined their own tumultuous times. 

Women’s work

“I want to show that women were concerned with the classics in colonial America,” says Gallito, who is pursuing simultaneous undergraduate and master’s degrees in history, as well as a double major in classics. “It was important to how they thought about what this new idea of America could look like.” 

Mercy Otis Warren, who lived from 1728 to 1814, used ancient history to skewer the politics of the time in her satirical plays and poems. 

The renowned poet Phillis Wheatley was emancipated after the 1773 publication of her first book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which referenced classical life and culture while exploring questions of American identity and slavery. 

English historian Catharine Macaulay alluded to ancient Greece and Rome as models of government and morality as she advocated for the principles on which the United States was founded. 

Where research meets art

Gallito grew up in Cleveland and developed an interest in the classics while studying Ancient Greek in high school. She chose Johns Hopkins because she wanted a research-focused school that was in a city. 

Her involvement with the Antioch Recovery Project, a Hopkins research lab that studies ancient mosaics from the city of Antioch-on-the-Orontes in southern Turkey, cemented for her the satisfactions of using rigorous research to better understand history and art. 

In another class, she wrote about the Maryland Gazette, which for several years was run by Anne Catherine Hoof Green, one of the first female editor/ publishers in the Colonies. The paper’s “Poet’s Corner,” with poems in Greek, Latin, or translations of either, underscored for Gallito that women at the time were interested in antiquity as well as in the changing world around them. 

Gallito, who won a $6,000 Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) to pursue her research, expects to complete a 100- to 150-page work by spring. The funding has given her freedom to visit archives in Boston and elsewhere, where she can examine the handwritten notes of these brilliant and brave women. 

“Seeing the way people wrote, seeing what words they scratched out in letters and how they rewrote them, has all made it come much more alive for me,” she says. 

Inspired by the Elders to Tell Stories

Fall 2018

Stephanie Boddie ’86
Stephanie Boddie courtesy of Baylor University

After Sunday services, Stephanie Boddie’s grandfather would sell candy to the children at the small church in Baltimore where he was a deacon. 

It wasn’t until she learned about his matched savings program, called Individual Development Accounts (IDA), that she realized the genius of what Michael Sherraden was doing: taking the kids’ money, which they would otherwise spend at the candy store down the street, and putting everything over the cost of the candy into a scholarship fund that would support them in their college years—essentially helping them save their own money for education. 

“There was a whole generation of us that received scholarship money from this project he had selling us candy,” Boddie ’86 recalls. “But even more than that, it was an opportunity to chat with us and begin mentoring us—before mentoring became a huge thing.” 

That interplay between faith communities and the larger community, and the role that Black congregations play in the broader African American experience, have been the focus of Boddie’s research through the years. An associate professor of church and community ministries at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, Boddie is currently a distinguished senior scholar in residence at the University of Pennsylvania’s Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, where she is working on a book about lessons learned from the ways Philadelphia churches handled societal crises during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Public histories

The author of several books that cover a broad spectrum, from urban ministry to public health, Boddie cites both her grandfather and W.E.B. Du Bois as inspirations for the career she pursued after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences from the Krieger School, and a master’s degree in social work and doctorate in social welfare from the University of Pennsylvania. Boddie’s fascination with Du Bois led her to co-direct the public history project “The Ward: Race and Class in Du Bois’ Seventh Ward,” which incorporates everything from documentaries and oral histories to murals and a board game to promote conversations about race. 

The project’s oral histories include stories like that of Samuel Joyner, a World War II veteran who recalled having to line up behind white prisoners of war during military mealtimes, and how he focused his artistic ability on contributing to the Civil Rights Movement as an award-winning political cartoonist. 

“He not only shares how devastated he was to experience this kind of racism while he was there to serve his country, but also how his faith helped him loosen the grip of what could have been debilitating hatred due to what he experienced,” Boddie says. “These hidden stories help us understand their individual experiences, but also American history and African American history, and how far we’ve come in addressing racism and how much farther we need to go.” 

Combining data and stories

Such storytelling is the foundation for Boddie’s research, through which she pushes beyond facts and figures to connect with the people who benefit from her work, whether the project is about helping formerly incarcerated people re-enter society, or addressing food insecurity and climate change. 

“The basic framework is leading with both data and stories,” she says. “Because data gives people an idea of the magnitude of the challenge, and putting a story or a face to that particular issue helps people see that this could be me—someone in my family could be going through this.” 

That narrative approach flows into another project, “Unfinished Business”—a unique combination of documentary and live music that Boddie, who trained in classical voice at Hopkins and was a founding member of the Hopkins Gospel Choir, created and performs at theaters, churches, museums, universities, and conferences in major cities around the country. “Hopefully, because this project includes both stories and tells stories through music, it touches people in a deeper place and they feel moved to engage with this work and find their own stories in it, no matter what background they come from,” she says. 

Just as her grandfather found creative ways to focus on community uplift, Boddie sees motivating people to consider different perspectives as a key part of her work in every project. “It isn’t enough to do a research study and write a book,” she says. “It’s important for me to see how this knowledge actually has an impact on the community that needed it the most.”

Examining Equity in Supreme Court Rulings

Fall 2018

Kory Gaines sitting on marble steps on campus
Photo of Kory Gaines by Mike Ciesielski

Historic Supreme Court rulings dominate the pages of newspapers and U.S history textbooks. It’s not those individual rulings that matter in Kory Gaines’ research, but when and how the court rulings impacted American citizens and democracy. “We’re thinking about how the court is a policymaker, in a way,” he says. “Is the court a democratizing force? Or is it an anti-democratic power broker?” 

Gaines, a fourth-year political science PhD student, is analyzing the federal government’s role in civil rights and racial justice with Robert Lieberman, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science, and Desmond King of Oxford University. According to Lieberman, understanding what made the expansion of civil rights and the extension of democracy possible between 1840 and today could help make future progress toward “racial democratization” easier. 

Creating a new database

To examine those conditions more closely, Gaines created a new database by compiling hundreds of minority rights-related laws, Supreme Court cases, and executive actions. Then he drilled down to more than 200 Supreme Court rulings and coded them for positive or negative civil rights outcomes. The analysis of those rulings (recently published in Law & Policy) found that the Supreme Court was often ahead of Congress and the president in making strides toward a more equitable country. But rulings alone weren’t enough to create change. The data show that the Court sometimes ruled repeatedly on the same issues, such as housing discrimination, until other branches were pushed to enforce the decision. 

“The most interesting part of the paper is when legislators don’t want to decide on a policy because it’s touchy,” Gaines says. “When they don’t want to pass a law, they leave the discretion up to the Court to make a decision.” 

The Court can use its power to set civil rights standards, but it takes repeated efforts and cooperation from, and enforcement by, Congress and executives to make those rights real. Gaines says the research also highlights the potential of the impact of political organizing. Labor rights and civil rights groups began working together in the early 20th century. That cooperation may have resulted in the increase in pro-civil rights Supreme Court rulings in the early 20th century—decades before the civil rights movement. 

“This research is important in 2024 because we still need to think about the varying levers for democratization [to] expand the political rights and powers of all people,” he says. 

Next steps

Gaines’ research with Lieberman will be used for several upcoming papers and a book project. Gaines will also use similar methods and literature to build out his work on political science and Black history, such as how events like police raids on blues nightclubs changed American politics and impacted political organizing. This is why he was drawn to Lieberman’s research project in the first place, he says. It’s the part of political science that brings history in. 

Dean Chris Celenza on the Arts

Fall 2018

Dean Christopher S. Celenza

What is the role of the arts at a major research institution like Johns Hopkins? And how do we connect the worlds of research and art in a compelling manner? At the Krieger School, we have a panoply of ways our students and faculty can engage with various art forms. In addition to understanding critical works of art displayed throughout the Homewood campus, students can explore their creativity in our Center for Visual Arts, study the nuances of film in our Program in Film and Media Studies, or learn about art curation in our Program in Museums and Society. And students can also avail themselves of one of the most storied creative writing programs in the country through our renowned Writing Seminars department. 

Here in Baltimore, we are fortunate to be in close proximity to important collections and exhibits in the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), the Walters Art Museum, and the Peale museum, to name just a few. In fact, last December, the Krieger School signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the BMA aimed at building awareness of the two institutions, enhancing curricular collaborations, and fostering opportunities for research collaborations. In just the last academic year, the BMA has hosted 108 guided class visits, compared to 39 the previous year. Partnerships like these give our students hands-on experiences with artists and practitioners. 

About 40 minutes away, our Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., enhances our quest to connect the worlds of research and art with the new Irene and Richard Frary Gallery, which opened just in October with an exhibition of rare avant-garde works by artists throughout the European continent including Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltics, created during the social and cultural upheavals in Central and Eastern Europe between 1910 and 1941. The stunning 1,000-square-foot gallery will present rotating exhibitions drawn from university collections, and special exhibitions in partnership with leading museums and collections. 

From the Krieger School to Peabody to the Bloomberg Center, the arts at Johns Hopkins are expanding. And now a new initiative put in place by Provost Ray Jayawardhana aims to bolster the arts across the university, embracing their potential to invigorate community, enrich student learning, and inspire the exchange of ideas across disciplines and divisions. 

The initiative will be led by art historian Daniel H. Weiss ’92, Homewood Professor of the Humanities at the Krieger School and President Emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Dan served as the dean of the Krieger School from 2002 until 2005. In an announcement about the initiative, he said, “Johns Hopkins has always had that commitment [to the arts and humanities], but it hasn’t always been highly visible, synergistic, or strategic.” 

I am eager to see the results of the team Dan has put together to move this effort forward, so stay tuned to this Arts & Sciences Magazine. 

Enhancing our ability to create, ponder, and interact with art gives us deeper insights into our own humanity and the humanity of others. It is a vital aspect of the education students receive at Johns Hopkins. I invite our Krieger School alumni to share news with us ([email protected]) about your work or involvement in the arts. We’d love to hear from you. 

Sincerely,

Christopher S. Celenza

James B. Knapp Dean

Notable: Mark Monmonier

Fall 2018

Mark Monmonier
Photo: Marilyn Hesler/Syracuse University

Mark Monmonier

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University, renowned for his ingenious mapmaking skills and geographic knowledge. 

Education

  • BA, Liberal Arts (mathematics), from JHU, 1964 
  • PhD, Geography, from Pennsylvania State University, 1969 

Career Highlights

  • Regarded as an innovator, whose contributions include the Monmonier Algorithm, an important research tool for geographic studies in linguistics and genetics. 
  • Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, 1984 
  • Has authored more than 20 books, including the first general textbook on computer-assisted cartography and How to Lie with Maps, which was named one of the “eight essential books for geographers” by Geographical magazine in 2020. 
  • Was the editor of Volume Six of the History of Cartography, a massive multi-volume project launched in the late 1970s. Received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Geographers in March 2023 “for his profound scholarly influence on the fields of cartography and geographic communication, for his impactful teaching and mentorship, and for his service to the discipline of geography.” 
  • His fascination with the details of various inventors’ lives was partly inspired by his maternal grandfather, an inventor with several patents for objects like milk bottle closures and seals. 

Quoted

They haven’t died—they have just become more specialized,” regarding the widely reported death of printed maps.”

—Financial Times, April 2018 

Generally speaking, people trust mapmakers to give them the most reliable representation, and there’s not usually an inherent bias. But there can be sloppiness…There are lots of people making maps who use an algorithm to provide them with compact, allegedly accurate categories, but they ignore these [inherently meaningful breaks], and the maps can end up distorted.”

—Bloomberg, September 2019 

Welcoming the Class of 2028

Fall 2018

The 1,288 members of the Class of 2028 got an overview of academics, student life, the Hopkins and Baltimore communities, and what it takes to make a smooth transition to college during Orientation 2024, held August 18–25. 

Scenes from Orientation 2024

Photography by Will Kirk

parent and student smiling in front of "Welcome Home New Jays" sign
Students and their families take advantage of a photo op on the Freshman Quad during Family Welcome.
students moving boxes into dorms
Students move into their dorms.
student breakdancing on Shriver Hall stage as others in the dance group look on
Student breakdancing during the annual Orientation Show held in Shriver Hall.
three smiling students holding an Instagram "Hopkins Votes" frame
Hopkins Votes—a nonpartisan group that provides resources and guidance to help students and employees participate in the democratic process—holds an event during Hopkins’ fourth annual Democracy Day.
a crowd outside in front of Gilman Hall in early evening during Jay's Carnival
Jay’s Carnival welcomes students on Keyser Quad.
students hiking over rocks through woods
Incoming students could choose to join the Johns Hopkins Outdoors Club for three days of hiking along the Appalachian Trail during Pre-O.
four smiling students in FLI/JHU t-shirts, pom-poms in hand, cheerfully welcoming new FLI students with
FLI—the First-Generation- Limited-Income Network—hosted a pep rally so students could connect.
JHU Pep band playing in front of rec center
The Pep Band at JHU (“Forcing merriment and mayhem since 1921!”) greets students arriving for Convocation.
overhead view of convocation
President Ron Daniels addresses incoming students during Convocation.
overhead view of students assembled into their class year "28"
Members of the Class of 2028 gather for the traditional iconic photo.
students outdoors on sunny day for t-shirt give away in front of Eisenhower library ("the beach")
Mingling in the sun during the T-shirt giveaway on the Beach in front of Eisenhower l
three smiling students holding up Hopkins t-shirts
T-shirts flow at a giveaway on the Beach.

Other Lives: Brian Camley

Fall 2018

Growing up, physicist Brian Camley was anything but an outdoors person. But these days, he spends weekends walking his two horses, Felix and Zukini, on lead ropes at their barn in Maryland’s western Howard County. 

“I sort of married into the hobby,” explains Camley, assistant professor in the William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy. 

Camley and his wife, Kristen Flowers, bought Felix in 2013. Zukini joined the family—which also includes five cats at home— about two years ago, when Felix developed health issues that made riding him unsafe. 

Brian Camley with horse Felix
Photo of Brian Camley with Felix by Larry Canner

Camley’s not a rider—riding is tough to learn, he says— but he finds relaxation and satisfaction in taking care of both horses. “It gets you out of your own head; it forces you to be present and just deal with the horse,” he says. “They’re interesting to pay attention to and communicate with.” Felix, a Dutch Warmblood with a taste for apple cider, sometimes acts grumpy but is one of the calmest horses he’s known. Zukini, an Oldenburg, is friendlier but startles more easily. 

Working with any animal teaches patience, but Camley’s found that to be especially true with horses. “The horse outweighs you by an incredible amount, and you have to convince the horse that you are in charge,” he says. “But you also have to meet the horse halfway.” 

Ask the Professor: Robert Barbera

Fall 2018

Robert Barbera
Illustration of Robert Barbera by Matthew Cook

Robert J. Barbera ’74 BA, ’78 PhD is a lecturer in the Department of Economics and director of the Krieger School’s Center for Financial Economics. His research specialties include real interest rate/real growth rate linkages and global energy supply and demand issues.

In lay terms, why can’t the Federal Reserve fine-tune the economy? 

Robert Barbera: Most everyone knows that when prices are rising too rapidly, the Fed raises interest rates to slow the economy. If growth is sluggish, they lower rates so we can borrow more and then the economy accelerates. 

But that simple model masks a complex and arbitrary process, because it’s a very crude instrument: The Fed is generally controlling just one interest rate, the overnight interest rate. That rate affects—but can’t determine—thousands of other interest rates. In response to the overnight rate change, financiers, banks, and investors buy and sell securities, and decide how much they want to borrow or lend or how risky something looks. Those responses determine the interest rates, asset prices, and currency levels that most of us are familiar with. 

conceptual illustration showing a person shining a flashlight into a giant percent sign
Illustration by Robert Neubecker

We can’t predict how changing the overnight cost of money will hit one group versus another. In the aftermath of the pandemic, inflation soared, so the Fed raised overnight rates from zero to over 5%. Strikingly, market responses concentrated the squeeze from this tightening onto the U.S. housing market: Mortgage rates rose to around 7.5%, from roughly 3.5% over the previous decade. 

Did the Fed purposely only whack housing? Not at all. They raised the overnight interest rate to slow things down. For reasons beyond me, risky corporate assets, stocks, and corporate bonds largely shrugged it off, and corporate borrowers saw only a small rise, from around 5% in 2013–19 to 6.5%. 

Is this how it usually works? Not at all. In 1983–84, Fed tightening elicited a surge for the dollar, a manufacturing sector recession, caused by an explosive rise in the trade deficit. 

The moral of the story? Fed policy is very powerful, but the Fed wields a blunt instrument. And whose ox is gored, cycle to cycle, is quite arbitrary. 

The Secret Lives of Microbes

Fall 2018

Gira Bhabha (at right) and Damian Ekiert in their lab
Gira Bhabha (at right) and Damian Ekiert in their lab. Photo by Tracey Brown.

Gira Bhabha and Damian Ekiert are a marriage of two minds. New associate professors in the Department of Biology, these life and research partners founded Bhabha + Ekiert Labs, which they collectively call “the group,” several years ago. The group studies the structural biology and cell biology of microbes, and is now affiliated with Johns Hopkins. Bhabha + Ekiert Labs is an amalgam of professors, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates who bring their intellect, energy, and talent to research. 

Revealing how microbes interact

Bhabha is a structural biologist and Ekiert’s expertise is in microbiology. The group uses breakthrough imaging technologies—such as cryo-electron microscopy, cryo-electron tomography (Cryo-ET), and super-resolution light microscopy—to reveal the structural mechanisms and cell biology of microbes and how they interact with their hosts. 

Two focuses of their group are bacteria and parasites, which can wreak havoc on the species that they infect. 

The parasites they study, for example, can cause bee colonies to collapse, reduce yields of farmed seafood, and start fatal infections in patients with AIDS; bacteria can cause serious infections, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is the leading cause of death due to infectious disease. 

“By studying the biology of divergent microbes, you can understand fundamental new biology and lay the foundation for treating intractable disease problems,” Bhabha says. 

Fighting microsporidia with technology

One current project investigates complex biochemical mechanisms in the unicellular parasites, microsporidia. More than 1,400 microsporidia species have been reported to date. They pose a devastating threat to agriculture, from honeybees to farmed seafood, and they can also infect humans, and cause fatal illness in patients with compromised immune systems. 

“You can apply new technologies developed in the last 10 to 20 years to biological problems that have been known for more than a century and paint a picture of the inner workings of microbes from the level of atoms to cells,” Bhabha says. 

Fittingly, the genesis of the Bhabha + Ekiert Labs began in a cell biology class at the University of Chicago, where the two met as undergrads. She was raised in Mumbai and he in Florida. They immediately had chemistry. 

The route to Johns Hopkins

During subsequent years, they’ve surmounted one of the greatest challenges to academic couples: being in the same place at the same time. Both trekked west to study for their PhDs at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. Afterward, Bhabha and Ekiert moved north for postdocs at the University of California, San Francisco, before heading to NYU School of Medicine, where they first established their joint research labs. 

“A lab is similar to a small business or a startup, so we decided to tackle it as business partners. From extensive previous collaborations since we were graduate students, we knew we could work well together,” Bhabha says. 

Bhabha and Ekiert relocated to Baltimore in April 2024. They packed up and headed south to Baltimore with their two rescue dogs Tesla (“named for the scientist, not the car,” Ekiert says) and Tonto. 

“It felt like a good fit, a place where the intensity and interest in fundamental science, as well as the core values, resonated deeply with both of us,” she says. 

Both will start teaching in the Department of Biology in spring 2025. 

Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Julie Lundquist

Fall 2018

Julie Lundquist
Courtesy of Julie Lundquist

When she was an undergraduate student studying English literature, Julie Lundquist added a physics major because she enjoyed math and solving physics problems— though she says they didn’t excite her the way certain kinds of poetry did. That is, until a seminar during an internship at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. There, she was introduced to Milton Van Dyke’s An Album of Fluid Motion, a book of photographs illustrating fluid dynamics, such as water tank simulations or smoke moving through a wind tunnel. Lundquist says she was “blown away” by how beautiful it was and pivoted her career to become an atmospheric scientist. 

Lundquist, a national leader in research in sustainable energy generation from wind, joined Johns Hopkins University last July as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Wind Energy. She holds primary appointments in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the Krieger School and in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering. 

series of wind turbines in water

Studying how air flows

Lundquist studies atmospheric dynamics—the ways in which air flows. Her research uses observational and computational approaches to understand the atmospheric boundary layer, with an emphasis on atmosphere-wind energy interactions. The atmospheric boundary layer is the lowest part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface, where communication between the air and the ground occurs, and temperature changes on the ground can affect air movement in the atmosphere. The turbulent atmospheric boundary layer usually traps pollution so that upper layers of the atmosphere are effectively insulated from the ground. Lundquist is interested in both the atmospheric consequences of wind energy deployment and the atmospheric impacts on wind energy production. 

“I want to solve these big-picture problems, and knowing the work that we’re doing can make an impact in the world inspires my research,” Lundquist says. “Our civilization is moving so fast, and the disparities are so dramatic. If I can do something that helps make electricity more accessible to more people, in a way that doesn’t cause harm, that’s one step toward addressing energy challenges and global climate change while reducing pollution. And I get to solve some really fun puzzles along the way.” 

Working together for transformational results

Lundquist is part of the Sustainable Transformations and Energy Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships cluster. The BDP clusters are faculty-developed interdisciplinary groups that are recruiting new BDPs and junior faculty members to Hopkins to conduct transformational research in 10 crucial fields. The Sustainable Transformations and Energy cluster unites scientists, engineers, and market and policy experts with interests aligned toward solving critical technological and societal problems arising from the use of unsustainable chemicals and materials, fossil fuels, and other anthropogenic, environmentally harmful substances. The BDPs in this cluster will hold lead roles as part of the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI), a nexus for sustainable energy-related research and educational programs at Johns Hopkins University. 

Lundquist comes to Johns Hopkins from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she was a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and affiliate faculty in the Department of Applied Mathematics. She also holds a joint appointment at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which will continue at Hopkins. 

Uncovering Santa Cruz de Lancha

Fall 2018

When art historian Lisa DeLeonardis looks back at the Santa Cruz de Lancha Jesuit complex in 17th-century Peru, she sees resilience. 

For 137 years, the provincial house and its two haciendas faced off with earthquakes, tsunamis, disease, and even pirates. Over and over in the port city of Pisco, Jesuits, Andeans, and African enslaved workers rebuilt, once even helping to move the entire city farther inland. What can this history tell us about those living through it, asks DeLeonardis in a forthcoming book project; and what can it tell us about the art and science of place-making? 

Santa Cruz de Lancha in ruins.
Above, Santa Cruz de Lancha in ruins. Below, DeLeonardis measures the bell tower at the oratory.

Architecture with meaning

DeLeonardis measures a bell tower at the oratory.
Photos courtesy of Lisa DeLeonardis

As Austen-Stokes Associate Professor in the Department of the History of Art, DeLeonardis has devoted her career to architecture as a visual medium, studying both how it is built and used, and the meanings people gather from it. Half of her research has focused on ancient Andean and Incan architecture and the other half on the early modern period, expanding beyond considerations of style and space to questions about the experience of landscape, light, and natural catastrophe. 

In Santa Cruz de Lancha: Architecture and the Making of Place in Eighteenth-Century Peru, DeLeonardis plumbs ruins, landscapes, and meticulous records to reveal the kinds of decisions leaders made under duress, and the priorities that guided them, including the Jesuit emphasis on education. She explores the use of quincha—a construction system made of natural materials such as wood, cane, or giant reed—which withstands earthquakes better than . e stone usually used for grand churches. And she analyzes the effect of combining architectural skills and choices from Rome, Indigenous Peru, and Africa. The thread running through all of it is the constant threat and reality of destruction, which creates a series of discrete chapters of history instead of an unbroken stream. That allows DeLeonardis to study different people under different circumstances and offer more textured interpretations. 

“It really reveals the social fabric of colonial Peru,” she says, “and it’s much richer, much more complicated than just reciting what happened. There’s more of a mosaic to consider, where you can look at these distinct pieces and craft it all together.” 

Pisco as a place

As a port city, Pisco was vulnerable not only to tsunamis and earthquakes, but also to the Flemish, English, and French pirates looking for a share of the gold, silver, and emeralds that were making their way from the Peruvian and Bolivian interiors toward European shipping routes. Not always content to wait for the bounty to come to them at sea, pirates began attacking the ports, where they burned cities, raided treasuries and stores of brandy and wine, and kidnapped and massacred residents. Even the priests were recruited into the military to stand guard. 

By the 18th century, some of the enslaved workers had bought their freedom. Travelers and religious pilgrims alike found respite in the haciendas. Today the books, art objects, and interplay between desert and building—all created by three cultures working together to hold natural and human forces at bay— continue to offer glimpses into Pisco as a place, and into the elements that make it the particular place that it is. 

Finding Commonalities Between China and the U.S. 

Fall 2018

Yuen Yuen Ang
Yuen Yuen Ang Courtesy of the institute for new economic thinking

Yuen Yuen Ang says China’s political economy today resembles America’s during the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. Both involve rapid growth, industrialization, corruption, and growing inequality. 

Understanding these similarities removes stereotypes and helps bring the two countries closer to understanding each other, says Ang, the Alfred Chandler Chair of Political Economy—the first named professor at the Center for Economy and Society within the SNF Agora Institute. 

“If you take stories from the Gilded Age and replace them with Chinese names, you are describing contemporary China,” she says in her new video series, “Economics of China,” created through the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes new ways of thinking about economies and communities. 

Taking aim at stereotypes

In seven lively video segments, each about 25 minutes long, Ang takes aim at what she describes as stereotypes and misconceptions about China’s political economy. 

“On a micro level it is a lecture series about Chinese development and political economy,” says Ang, who is also on the faculty of the Department of Political Science. “But on a more macro level, what I’m trying to convey is a lesson about perspectives. I think it’s human instinct to ‘other’ any kind of rival. I want to counter that instinct.” 

Ang, a longtime China scholar, has authored two books on the country’s governance and economy, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), and China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption (2020). The new video series, she says, distills her ideas for a wider audience. 

“My work is about how China’s political economy has come to the current point,” says Ang. “What I do as a political economist, which makes me different from a pure economist, is I place particular emphasis on the role of politics and governance. What I emphasize is that the United States and China share similar problems of capitalism, but they use starkly different political methods to deal with it.” 

Watch Now

In this seven-episode series, Yuen Yuen Ang explains how China escaped poverty and became the second largest economy in the world.

Personal insights

Ang says her perspective was shaped by growing up in Singapore in the 1970s. “China was opening up at the time,” she says, “and Singapore as a post-colonial country was rapidly taking off. That gave me personal insights into what it means to grow up in a country that’s rapidly industrializing.” 

She came to the United States on a full scholarship to Colorado College, majoring in political science. She earned a PhD in political science at Stanford University and joined Johns Hopkins in 2023. 

Ang recently embarked on new research to better understand China’s development in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“One of the reasons I was so excited to join Johns Hopkins and the Center for Economy and Society and SNF Agora is that these institutions place a big premium on public-facing scholarship,” she says. 

“Though they may seem esoteric, the narratives that politicians adopt to frame bilateral relations have real effects on the ground,” she says. “When people in one society feel ashamed of sharing universal human problems with another society, it is troubling. War begins at the psychological level when individuals cease to perceive a common humanity between us and them.”