Skip to content
man jumping on the roof in city with abstract grunge,illustration painting

Walkers in the City—and Everywhere

In psychogeography, the journey is key. Each step a person takes helps them reshape and better understand the role the space around them plays in their life.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher’s “Musical Ark”

The first algorithmically generated music came to us in the seventeenth century, courtesy of Kircher and his Arca musarithmica.

In the Limelight

Loie Fuller

The Serpentine Career of Loïe Fuller

Rising from the ranks of touring comedies and Wild West shows, the American dancer dreamed of a future of light, movement, and metamorphosis.

Suggested Readings

Two children posing behind a photo stand-in of Renaissance people with big mugs of beer.

Renaissance Fairs, Lost Treasure, and TV Reboots

Well-researched stories from Smithsonian Magazine, Black Perspectives, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Most Recent

An illustration of meat marbling

Why Eat Like a Caveman?

To people who follow the Paleo plan, it can mean anything from embracing meat-eating as a feminist choice to seeking a balanced life with room for leisure.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22A_Thrilling_Hallowe%27en.%22_(Three_black_cats_flying_through_the_air_with_Jack-o-lanterns).jpg

Halloween Stories

Why are Victorians the default haunted house, what do ghosts have to do with the imagination, and why do we like to be scared?
Logging in the Oregon forests, c. 1917

Water Logs

Log drivers once steered loose timber on rivers across America before railroad expansion put such shepherds out of work.
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.

More Stories

Cabinet of Curiosities

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher’s “Musical Ark”

The first algorithmically generated music came to us in the seventeenth century, courtesy of Kircher and his Arca musarithmica.

In the Limelight

Loie Fuller

The Serpentine Career of Loïe Fuller

Rising from the ranks of touring comedies and Wild West shows, the American dancer dreamed of a future of light, movement, and metamorphosis.

Suggested Readings

Two children posing behind a photo stand-in of Renaissance people with big mugs of beer.

Renaissance Fairs, Lost Treasure, and TV Reboots

Well-researched stories from Smithsonian Magazine, Black Perspectives, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Long Reads

Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran: Godfather of the “New Age”

Published in 1923, The Prophet became a perpetual best-seller, birthed a genre, and marked the poet as retrograde, sentimental, and florid.
Fernando Pessoa, 1914

“The Poet Is a Man Who Feigns”

Portuguese modernist Fernando Pessoa channeled a grand, glorious chorus of writers—heteronyms, he called them—robust inventions of his unique imagination.
William Henry Fox Talbot, by John Moffat, 1864

The Daguerreotype’s Famous. Why Not the Calotype?

William Henry Fox Talbot’s obsession with protecting his pioneering photographic process doomed his reputation and reduced his legacy to historical footnote.
Three covers from Venus Magazine

From the Black Queer South to the World

Across its twelve-year lifespan, Atlanta-based Venus magazine brought southern voices to the larger Black queer print media network.

Compared to the work of his contemporaries, Dave’s was epic.

Dave the Potter’s Mark on History

Produce is offered for sale at a grocery store on October 13, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois.

The Price of Plenty: Should Food Be Cheap?

The supermarket revolution made food more affordable and accessible than ever. But do the hidden costs of food feed into our illusions of justice and progress?
Handsome young adult man standing next to his electric vehicle and using his smart phone while his car is plugged into the charging station

EV Cars: Can We Electrify Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis?

The transition to personal electric vehicles in the United States is a cornerstone of the plan to decarbonize transportation. But will it work?
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.