Cute tiny people reading different books, giant textbooks. Concept of book world, readers at library, literature lovers or fans. Colorful vector illustration in flat cartoon style

Speculative Fiction: A Reading List

Speculative fiction, from Afrofuturism to Star Wars, offers students tools and methods for analyzing social movements, power structures, and utopian thinking.
Scene of Three Witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth by George Cattermole, 1840

King James I and the Macbeth Witches

The ever-pragmatic Shakespeare added witches to the Scottish play to please his new patron, King James I of England.
The only surviving image that may depict Anne Hathaway, made by Sir Nathaniel Curzon in 1708.

Anne Shakespeare: Toward a Biography

Let’s check in with Anne Shakespeare, née Hathaway, about whom so little is known.
Clockwise: Agha Shahid Ali, Elizabeth Bishop, William Logan, Paisley Rekdal, Charles Fort, Tim Seibles.

10 Villanelles by Modern and Contemporary Poets

Read these recursive, nineteen-line poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Paisley Rekdal, William Logan, Agha Shahid Ali, and more.
Plate Number 191. Dancing (fancy) by Eadweard Muybridge, 1887

The Intersection of Dance and Science

Lynn Matluck Brooks dives into the ever-evolving relationship between movement and technology.
A portrait of Lin Yutang beside the cover of his novel, Chinatown Family

The Chinatown Novel That Wasn’t

Examining Lin Yutang’s 1948 novel Chinatown Family, Richard Jean So reveals the ways in which literature is shaped by editorial interventions.
Photo: English crime writer Agatha Christie and her daughter, Rosalind, are featured in a newspaper article reporting the mysterious disappearance of the novelist. 

Source: Getty

Agatha Christie’s Mysterious Disappearance

In December 1926, Christie went missing for more than a week. Where did she go, and what was she up to?
A painting of The Belgic, the ship on which Ella Sheldon wrote many of her diaries.

Lonely Diarist of the High Seas

As ship stewardess, Ella Sheldon tended to upper-crust women onboard and battled a range of workplace demons. Her journals tell her story.
The Three Princes of Serendip

What Is Serendipity?

We often credit unexpected events to serendipity. But who amongst us knows The Three Princes of Serendip, the tale from which the word derives?
The cover of "Go" by Kazuki Kaneshiro

Race and American Pop Culture in Zainichi Stories

A close reading of the 1996 novel GO suggests zainichi identity is in dialogue with multiple national cultures, including American.