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Hunters in the Snow (Winter) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Art & Art History

The Climate Canvasses of the Little Ice Age

Low Country artists of the late Renaissance and Early Baroque eras captured the happiness and hardships of snowy winters—an ever rarer phenomenon now.

Shifting Identities

The Superman costume as worn by Christopher Reeve in Superman III

Still American?

A rumination on Superman, Black consciousness, and living the dream.

Suggested Readings

Chinstrap penguins socialize on a vibrant blue iceberg in Antarctica

Napping Penguins, Moon Landings, and Angels with Guns

Well-researched stories from Nursing Clio, The Conversation, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Unearthing Justice

Young protesters demanding climate reparations payment from rich countries to poor countries impacted by climate loss and damage, November 11, 2022

Climate Justice as Climate Reparations

Climate justice activists want countries of the Global North to make up for centuries of uneven industrialization, deforestation, extraction, and consumption.

Plant of the Month

Quinoa seeds

Quinoa: Rise of an Andean Superfood

Once considered a minor crop for Indigenous communities, quinoa’s journey to worldwide stardom was centuries in the making.

Most Recent

The Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490
Art & Art History

Lady with an Ermine Meets Nazi Art Thief Hans Frank

Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting bore witness to the administrative acts that enabled the crimes committed against Polish Jews during World War II.
Bal Masqué by Charles Hermans, 1880
Politics & History

Paris’s Wild Costume Balls

As urban growth brought rich and poor Parisians closer together in the 1830s, masked balls encouraged class mixing and costumes that crossed gender lines.
The cover of three issues of The Brownies Book
Arts & Culture

The Short Life (and A New Revival) of The Brownies’ Book

A new anthology celebrates the life and impact of one of the earliest American periodicals written for Black children.
Medieval coin, sixpence of Elizabeth I dating to AD 1596
Politics & History

The Magic of a Crooked Sixpence

Coins were used for centuries in many ritual contexts, but the English silver sixpence was a particularly common charm—for several reasons.

More Stories

Shifting Identities

The Superman costume as worn by Christopher Reeve in Superman III

Still American?

A rumination on Superman, Black consciousness, and living the dream.

Suggested Readings

Chinstrap penguins socialize on a vibrant blue iceberg in Antarctica

Napping Penguins, Moon Landings, and Angels with Guns

Well-researched stories from Nursing Clio, The Conversation, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Unearthing Justice

Young protesters demanding climate reparations payment from rich countries to poor countries impacted by climate loss and damage, November 11, 2022

Climate Justice as Climate Reparations

Climate justice activists want countries of the Global North to make up for centuries of uneven industrialization, deforestation, extraction, and consumption.

Plant of the Month

Quinoa seeds

Quinoa: Rise of an Andean Superfood

Once considered a minor crop for Indigenous communities, quinoa’s journey to worldwide stardom was centuries in the making.

Trending

A circle of white claymation guys around a black claymation guy
Reading Lists

Racist Humor: Exploratory Readings

An introduction to the history and theory of racist humor and the social role it plays in Western societies.
A woman proffers a jug of ale to a man in the street from her 'house of shame', in an allegorical 19th century woodcut.
Once Upon a Workplace

A Pint for the Alewives

Until the Plague decimated Europe and reconfigured society, brewing beer and selling it was chiefly the domain of the fairer sex.
Two arms with tattoos
Education & Society

Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?

And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus?

Long Reads

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28550903
Politics & History

How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis

Recruited to the war effort thanks to their deft research skills and technological know-how, librarians used microforms to gather and share intelligence with Allied forces.
Politics & History

Scrub-a-Dub in a Medieval Tub

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Europeans in the Middle Ages took pains to keep themselves clean.
William Carlos Williams, 1921
Arts & Culture

A Centennial Celebration of Spring and All

William Carlos Williams's hybrid work of poetry and prose both upended narrative conventions and delighted in the wondrous, unifying force of imagination.
A page from The Angolite that features a photograph of a prison guard holding a shotgun while watching prisoners work in a field.
American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation

"Except as punishment for a crime," reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.

Editors' Picks

Education & Society

Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings

How can we help students begin to make sense of the current and recurring violence in Israel and Gaza?
Education & Society

Artificial Intelligence and Education: A Reading List

A bibliography to help educators prepare students and themselves for a future shaped by AI—with all its opportunities and drawbacks.
Education & Society

How to Teach with JSTOR Text Analyzer

JSTOR Text Analyzer provides students with an additional resource for finding scholarly material.
Politics & History

Ukraine, Russia, and the West: A Background Reading List

Research reports and scholarly articles on the history of the Ukraine-Russia conflicts of the past and possible paths for peace.
Education & Society

Digital Ethnography: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

The rise of the internet age and digital spaces has created a whole new world for ethnographic investigation.

Quirky History

The cover image from Ghost stories and phantom fancies, 1858

Class and Superstition in Britain

Believing in ghosts wasn’t a class marker until the 1820s, when suddenly the educated classes tried to convince the masses that these apparitions were delusions.
Five views of the eagle diamond

Shine On You Eagle Diamond

The year 1893 was a big one for Eagle, Wisconsin. Workers found a huge diamond on the Devereaux farm: sixteen carats, uncut, and now, all these years later, missing.
Charles Nelson of Hoxton in East London has been working as a 'knocker-up' for 25 years. He wakes up early morning workers such as doctors, market traders and drivers.

Who and What Was a Knocker-Upper?

Pour one out for the people paid to rouse the workers of industrial Britain.

Shared Collections on JSTOR

A map that shows mountains and roads in Xigu Cheng

Maps, Power, and Identity

The Ancient East Asian Maps Collection at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology demonstrates the power held and discursive work done by mapmakers.
A spread from a yearbook featuring a collage of black and white photographs of students around campus and Portland

Keep Portland Yearbook Photos Weird

Across thousands of images, Portland State University's yearbooks captured both society's upheaval and the city's cultural metamorphosis.
Chicano Brothers Car Club: Photograph of David Aguilar with a 1950 Chevrolet

The San Diego Lowrider Archival Project

The lessons of "low and slow."

Syllabus

GAZA CITY, GAZA - JULY 24: A general view of the Beit Hanoun neighborhood on July 24, 2017 in Gaza City, Gaza. For the past ten years Gaza residents have lived with constant power shortages, in recent years these cuts have worsened, with supply of regular power limited to four hours a day. On June 11, 2017 Israel announced a new round of cuts at the request of the Palestinian authorities and the decision was seen as an attempt by President Mahmoud Abbas to pressure Gaza's Hamas leadership. Prior to the new cuts Gaza received 150 megawatts per day, far below it's requirements of 450 megawatts. In April, Gaza's sole power station which supplied 60 megawatts shut down, after running out of fuel, the three lines from Egypt, which provided 27 megawatts are rarely operational, leaving Gaza reliant on the 125 megawatts supplied by Israel's power plant. The new cuts now restrict electricity to three hours a day severely effecting hospital patients with chronic conditions and babies on life support. During blackout hours residents use private generators, solar panels and battery operated light sources to live. June 2017 also marked ten years since Israel began a land, sea and air blockade over Gaza. Under the blockade, movement of people and goods is restricted and exports and imports of raw materials have been banned. The restrictions have virtually cut off access for Gaza's two million residents to the outside world and unemployment rates have skyrocketed forcing many people into poverty and leaving approximately 80% of the population dependent on humanitarian aid. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings

How can we help students begin to make sense of the current and recurring violence in Israel and Gaza?
Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.
Enigma machine

Teaching AI, AKA Artificial Intelligence

AI is everywhere. So naturally, we pulled together a syllabus of stories on the subject. Use these to inspire classroom discussion or educate your grandpa.

Reading Lists

Joseph Durham looking at an urn

The Care of the Dead: A Reading List

An interdisciplinary bibliography exploring the care of the dead and how our final choices are shaped by culture, religion, economics, technology, and war.
A painting of Homer by William Blake

“Tell Me about a Complicated Man”: A Homer Reading List

The amount of scholarship on Homer and his works can be daunting. We've created this introductory reading list to help guide your explorations.
Global connectivity, illustration.

Digital Ethnography: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

The rise of the internet age and digital spaces has created a whole new world for ethnographic investigation.

Psychogeography is an environment’s impact on an individual’s behaviors or emotions—notwithstanding whether or how much that person is aware of such influence.

Walkers in the City—and Everywhere

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

A page from The Angolite that features a photograph of a prison guard holding a shotgun while watching prisoners work in a field.

Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation

"Except as punishment for a crime," reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.
Dr. Karl Menninger

Should Punishment Fit the Crime?

Dr. Karl Menninger on the crime of punishment.
From Paahao Press, November 1943

How Prisoners Contributed During World War II

Prisoners not only supported the war effort in surprising ways during World War II, they fought and died in it.

Annotations

People at a civil rights demonstration holding posters reading 'No More Birminghams', in reference to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church (in Birmingham, Alabama), Washington DC, US, 22nd September 1963.

“A Time To Speak”: Annotated

On September 15, 1963, a bomb killed four Black children in Birmingham, Alabama. Who threw that bomb? Each of us, argued Birmingham lawyer Charles Morgan, Jr.
Evo Morales speaking at a press conference at the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2010

Cochabamba People’s Agreement: Annotated

In April 2010, representatives from 140 countries gathered in Bolivia to outline an explicitly anti-capitalist, decolonial agenda for the sake of the planet.
Crystal Eastman

“Now We Can Begin”: Annotated

To mark the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, activist Crystal Eastman described the path to full freedom for American women.

Mathematics

Photo taken in the Bourbaki Congress of 1938 in Dieulefit

The Mathematical Pranksters behind Nicolas Bourbaki

Bourbaki was gnomic and mythical, impossible to pin down; his mathematics just the opposite: unified, unambiguous, free of human idiosyncrasy.
Karate chop

The Physics of Karate

A human hand has the power to split wooden planks and demolish concrete blocks. A trio of physicists investigated why this feat doesn't shatter our bones.
"Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army in the East" by Florence Nightingale, 1858

Florence Nightingale, Data Visualization Visionary

The woman who revolutionized nursing was also a mathematician who knew the power of a visible representation of information.

Sustainability & The Environment

businessman paints industrial plant sign in green color with the use of roller

What Is Greenwashing?

The disreputable and deceitful approach many companies have taken to demonstrate decarbonization remains a persistent, global challenge.
Peppered moth (Biston betularia)

Humans As Drivers of Evolution

“Anthropogenic,” meaning of human causes, is generally used to refer to climate change. But it also covers the powerful evolutionary force that is humanity.
Digital generated image of organic structured infinity sign made out of transparent plastic and grass growing inside against black background.

Know This About Net Zero

The term "net zero" remains ill-defined among the public. So what is it? Why is it necessary, and how does it fall short of solving all our climate woes?

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