Stance

This month, we kick off the new year with an exploration of language in our feature, “Way With Words”. How do we preserve our most endangered languages? How does a dialect become a language? Do labels like “Womxn”, “LGBTQIA”, “people of color” and “Latinx” empower or hold people back? What happens when a command of written and verbal language no longer separates robots from humans? We’ll dig into these questions and more with Animesh Garg, Robotics research scientist at Stanford; Dr. Helen Beer, Yiddish teacher at  University College London; Genesee Johnson, professor at Harvard; Mel Y Chen, Associate Professor of Gender & Women's Studies at UC Berkeley, and writer, Yara Rodrigues Fowler. We also speak with Armina Mussa, visual artist and creative director of Saint Heron - a multidisciplinary creative agency founded in 2013 by Solange Knowles. Armina shares how a life-changing incident has helped her find her voice in her art. Lastly, we revisit our MIND series exploring links between design and mental he