Latonya Smith ’24 and Emma Tuhabonye ’24 are studying guns in political advertisements through the Wesleyan Media Project. Their research aims to gain insight into how candidate traits—such as gender, partisanship, and race—may affect whether and how candidates discuss and feature guns in political advertisements. They used deep learning models Read more…
Dear all, With the end of the 2022-23 academic year upon us, we would like to share some of the many accomplishments of students working with the Center for the Study of Guns & Society (CSGS) at Wesleyan University during its first full academic year. Coursework This year, the Center offered its Read more…
Through analysis of firearm data (from patents, ballistics, manufacturing, gun deaths, and marketing), this project aims to track advancements in firearms from innovation to use in broader society. Textual analysis of firearm patents will give insight into how various mechanisms (eg. safety features) have been adopted in guns available in Read more…
The Carceral Connecticut Project (CCP) is an interdisciplinary, humanistic exploration of how Connecticut remembers and denies its past, funded by a generous three-year, $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. Through research, curricula, and collaborations with historical and cultural organizations in the Connecticut River Valley, the project seeks to fill Read more…
Undergraduates from Wesleyan, Brown, and RISD are working in collaboration with the National Park Service’s Coltsville Historic Park in Hartford, CT on a cross-disciplinary research and design project that will result in exhibits about New England’s hidden gun history. Coltsville is an important historical site in rough condition, with a Read more…
Every month in the US, roughly 70 women are shot and killed by their partners. Yet in February 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1994 law banning firearms possession for people subject to domestic violence protection orders, part of a wave of lower-court challenges to gun regulations Read more…
In her May 12 opinion column in the Washington Post, Karen Attiah wrote about the allure of gun culture, following yet another mass shooting in her home state of Texas. “In the United States, the holy symbol for our cult is the gun, and its sacred text is the Second Read more…
Jennifer Tucker, founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns & Society (CSGS), was recently interviewed on the Brady podcast in an episode titled, “The Rising Lethality of the Second Amendment.” Tucker describes her early introduction to guns in popular culture and how she came to study guns Read more…
Center for the Study of Guns & Society at Wesleyan Newsletter – March/April 2023 Dear All, As the Center for the Study of Guns & Society (CSGS) marks its one-year anniversary in April, we would like to share several developments over the past few months, as well as extend an invitation Read more…
Joseph Slaughter, associate director of the Center for the Study of Guns & Society, was recently interviewed by Current—an online journal of commentary and opinion on contemporary culture, politics, and ideas—about his research on how Christianity and gun culture became intertwined in the U.S. Slaughter discussed his research on gun Read more…
