Medicines That Feed Us examines the relationship between toxicity and remedy in the face of the intertwined health and environmental crises that are shaping life in the twenty-first century. Through ethnographic work with organizations that use plant-based healing and sustainable farming practices in Tanzania, Stacey A. Langwick asks what it means to heal in a toxic world.

Stacey Langwick is a cultural and medical anthropologist. At Cornell, Professor Langwick teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the anthropology of medicine, the body, postcolonial science, toxicity, critical plant studies and Africa. Her scholarship is broadly concerned with the politics of knowledge, questions of evidence, and possibilities of care. Most recently, she has taken up these themes through a range of interlocking issues including the science of traditional medicine in Africa, the afterlives of botanical colonization, the problem of toxicity, the politics of intellectual property, questions of bodily and territorial sovereignty, the work of chronicity and the rise chronic disease, and the possibilities of gardens as sites of epistemological and ontological experimentation.

The world needs infrastructure more acutely than ever. A cumulative $106 trillion in investments is imperative to meet global infrastructure requirements through 2040, not only for traditional assets such as roads, ports, bridges, and power grids but also for the next generation of those assets—and an emerging intersection of systems and facilities across verticals, including data centers, charging stations, fiber-optic networks, and more. This unprecedented call for capital can no longer be answered by the public sector alone.

Private capital is meeting the moment. In 2025, global infrastructure fundraising reached a record of nearly $200 billion, surpassing the previous high of $180 billion in 2022. Limited partners (LPs) continue to name infrastructure as the asset class they most want to increase their allocations to (increasingly for both diversification and performance) and are also displaying a willingness to move up the risk curve. General partners (GPs) are doing larger, more complex deals, with notably large funds (several holding $5 billion or more of committed capital) gaining share as the industry matures. - Mckinsey & Co

Muna B. Ndulo, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of International & Comparative Law; Elizabeth and Arthur Reich Director, Leo and Arvilla Berger International Legal Studies Program, Cornell LAw School. His focus is in the fields of constitution making, governance and institution building, international criminal law, African legal systems, human rights, and international law and foreign direct investments.

Speaker: Ming-Sung Kuo, University of Warwick School of Law

Title: "Justices Must Be Seen to Be Legitimate”: The (Post-Reform) Legitimacy Challenge of the Taiwan Constitutional Court, 2019-2025

Abstract: In this presentation, I take up one unasked question in the discussion of the legitimacy of judicial review, ‘Can procedural transparency do harm to the legitimacy of constitutional courts?’, by looking into the continued pursuit of judicialization of constitutional interpretation in Taiwan. Through an examination of the Taiwan Constitutional Court’s crisis despite the landmark 2019 procedural reform, I suggest that when a court intervenes actively only on grounds of procedural legitimacy, it may still not be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the people.

About East Asia Program

As Cornell’s hub for research, teaching, and engagement with East Asia, the East Asia Program (EAP) serves as a forum for the interdisciplinary study of historical and contemporary East Asia. The program draws its membership of over 45 core faculty and numerous affiliated faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students from eight of Cornell’s 12 schools and colleges.

A selection of short films screened at the Festival de Cine Libanés 2026 in Mexico City. Q&A with Festival Director Ginger Jabbour and select filmmakers to follow the screenings.

The Prison (Syria), Directed by Shaam Joli, 14 minutes

Based on a true story, The Prison follows a young Syrian student who is arrested on the street and imprisoned without warning. Subjected to torture and sexual violence, she struggles to survive a system designed to silence and dehumanize her. The film gives a face and a voice to the countless victims, too often reduced to mere statistics.

There Are Rumors That We Left (Syria-Lebanon), Directed by Joyce Oska, 13 minutes

Amid the war, Joelle, a young single mother, struggles to protect her daughter after a terrorist attack destroys a nearby school bus. When a travel ban leaves her eight-year-old daughter stranded, Joelle has no choice but to smuggle her across the Syrian-Lebanese border.

A Dream Pointing to Aadchit (Lebanon), Directed by Ghinwa Yassine, 18 minutes

Haunted by a recurring dream in which her grandfather tends the land of her childhood, G decides to return to Aadchit, a small village in southern Lebanon, where she discovers that the war has forever transformed her memories.

Abu Jabal (Palestine), Directed by Bisan Owda, 19 minutes

After seven months of displacement, Tahani and her daughter Sidra return to the ruins of their home in Khan Yunis. Confronted with devastating loss, they find their only refuge beside the grave of Abu Jabal—Tahani’s son and Sidra’s brother, whose name means “mountain” in Arabic.

Adas Falesteen (Palestine), Directed by Samar Taher Lulu & Hamid Khalil Elhusseini, 7 minutes

Amid the famine caused by the war on Gaza, a Palestinian chef transforms his passion for cooking into an act of resistance. Through a community kitchen, he prepares lentil meals for those facing hunger, nourishing not only their bodies but also a shared spirit of solidarity, resilience, and hope.