My name is Josh Freedman. I am a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, where I am writing a dissertation about the contemporary politics of science and expertise. I am also a human being, which is reserved for the periods of time when I am not writing said dissertation. My main areas of expertise include comparative politics, political economy, and how everything seems to be falling apart right now (generally speaking). I have regional expertise in the United States, China, and Taiwan, and have lived for extended periods of time in all of those places over the last decade. 

You might be wondering why the tagline of this site is “Small head, big thoughts.” It is because I have a very small head, and I am insecure about it. I find hat stores to be very emasculating.

If you are confused as to why there are no pictures of large burly men or football statistics, you are probably looking for Josh Freeman, the former starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Much to my parents’ dismay, that is not, in fact, me. You may also be wondering about emotional intelligence, but, unfortunately, that would be the work of a different Josh Freedman. If you are looking for a Josh Freedman that is doing a PhD in political science, you have a 50 percent chance of getting me. If you meant to email Josh Freeman, who completed his PhD at Harvard and also researches China and works at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, I’ll forward it along, don’t worry.

On this site, you will find links to all of my published work as well as random musings that I didn’t dare ask other people to publish. I have written articles about politics, social policy, and contemporary culture for a variety of print and online publications. Please go to “NOT FUNNY WRITING” to read those. I also contribute humor pieces to McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, and other online publications. Please go to “FUNNY WRITING” to read those.

I may start a Substack at some point, because I only participate in cultural phenomena after everybody else has already saturated the market. If I do, it will feature many of my interests, including Chinese and Taiwanese politics, the theories of Max Weber, higher education, why poor people seem to always get screwed, artisanal sandwiches, and which power cord I am currently missing (all of them, inexplicably).

If you are still unsatisfied for any reason, first look inward. Then feel free to email me at josh [at] jbfreedman.com. I do Bar Mitzvahs and weddings.