Sean McManus is Program Director of the Ideas Economy Project at The Economist Group in New York where he oversees a series of offline events and edits the Ideas Economy website. Prior to that, he was executive editor of Big Think where he oversaw all editorial operations and led the production of over 400 interviews with experts and thought leaders from around the world. Earlier, Sean was an editor at 02138 magazine. His work has appeared in the New York Times, New York magazine, Worth, and Details. He is a graduate of Washington & Lee University and earned a masters degree in American History from the University of North Florida, where he was the teaching assistant for a visiting professor from South Africa named Desmond Tutu.

Blog Entries by Sean McManus

What You Don't Know About Dreams

2 Comments | Posted August 12, 2009 | 06:21 PM (EST)


The popularity of dream studies goes in waves and right now the dream wave is cresting. As New York dream researcher Ross Levin told me recently, "Dreams are hot right now." It's not too surprising that in times of turmoil we dare to dream. But what are the practical applications?

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Is it Time to Invent a New Masculinity?

Posted August 12, 2009 | 12:36 PM (EST)


There has been all this news recently about the rise of Japanese "Herbivore Boys," men who shun sex and dating, assume a feminine sartorial visage, and eschew their father's professional traditions, instead content to hole up in their bedrooms playing video games. The stagnant economy has made these Herbivores,...

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Does Diversity Have a Downside?

Posted January 16, 2009 | 03:14 PM (EST)


For the last ten years, a husband and wife team of economists at UCLA, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn, have been pouring through piles of data on soldiers who fought for the Union Army in the American Civil War. The result of their research is a new book entitled Heroes...

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Is Gen. Jim Jones in the Pocket of Big Oil?

Posted December 1, 2008 | 02:52 PM (EST)


Since retiring from a sparkling 40-year military career the Associated Press says combined "impeccable military credentials with an ambassador's polish," Gen. Jim Jones has served as president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy. This job requires, according to the...

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Will Obama Punish African-American Clinton Supporters?

Posted November 7, 2008 | 02:41 PM (EST)


The Rev. Jesse Jackson may have cried on election night when it was announced that Barack Obama won the election, but last summer, the legendary civil rights activist once suggested that he'd like to cut the senator's nuts out -- for "talking down to black people." Rev. Jackson is...

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Big Think Presents: What's Your Plan?

Posted November 4, 2008 | 03:10 PM (EST)


If the election of 2000 reminded us that every vote counts, the election of 2008 has provoked a wholesale political awakening. Across every demographic and in every corner of the globe, American politics is, as Tina Brown might say, the big fat story.

At the website Big Think,...

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