Skip to content
A false colored scanning electron micrograph of a flour beetle

Bugging Out

The complicated, ever-changing, millennia-long relationship between insects and humans.

Unfolding AI

Young woman holding a cell phone

We Got Social Media Wrong. Can We Get AI Right?

How to be agents who use new AI tools, rather than subjects manipulated by them.

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

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.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Antique illustration: Sleeping at sea

The Women Who Preached in Their Sleep

Was sleep-preaching an ingenious way for oppressed women to subvert the social order through somniloquy?

Suggested Readings

Potato Pancakes "Latke's" with Sour Cream and Apple Sauce

Jewish Food, Brain Tech, and Mourning a Forest

Well-researched stories from Public Books, Perspectives on History, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Most Recent

A uniformed member of the Nazi SA and a student of the Academy of Physical Exercise examine materials plundered from the library of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, director of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin on May 6, 1933.

90 Years On: The Destruction of the Institute of Sexual Science

In May 1933, Nazi-led student groups organized public burnings of "un-German" books, including those held in the library of the Institute for Sexual Science.
Patients stand in the Red Cross building in Walter Reed Hospital, c. WWI

The Birth of the Modern American Military Hospital

The founding of Walter Reed General Hospital at the beginning of the twentieth century marked a shift in medical care for military personnel and veterans.
A cartoon of a woman's hand holding a microphone

Honey Cocaine’s Unexpected Cambodian Canadian Life Story

The Toronto rapper embraces a patois-inflected “bad gal” image to tell a deeply personal story about historical violence.
Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Viêt Kiêu Find a “Home for Now” in Ho Chi Minh City

A growing number of overseas Vietnamese, or Viêt Kiêu, call Ho Chi Minh City home. Why are so many emigrants and their children returning to Vietnam?

More Stories

Unfolding AI

Young woman holding a cell phone

We Got Social Media Wrong. Can We Get AI Right?

How to be agents who use new AI tools, rather than subjects manipulated by them.

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

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.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Antique illustration: Sleeping at sea

The Women Who Preached in Their Sleep

Was sleep-preaching an ingenious way for oppressed women to subvert the social order through somniloquy?

Suggested Readings

Potato Pancakes "Latke's" with Sour Cream and Apple Sauce

Jewish Food, Brain Tech, and Mourning a Forest

Well-researched stories from Public Books, Perspectives on History, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Long Reads

From the cover of The Black Mask magazine, June 1, 1923

The Gumshoes Who Took On the Klan

In the pages of Black Mask magazine, the Continental Op and Race Williams fought the KKK even as they shared its love of vigilante justice.
From the cover of Paahao Press, Summer 1960

A Century of History in Five Hawaiian Prison Newspapers

Hawaiian language and culture are emphasized throughout, ranging from before statehood and during martial law to modern day women's prisons.
American actors Cindy Williams (right) and Ron Howard as Laurie and Steve on the set of the Lucasfilm production 'American Graffiti',

The Sonic Triumph of American Graffiti

In 1973, George Lucas joined forces with sound designer Walter Murch to celebrate a bygone era. They ended up revolutionizing the role music plays in film.
Edward Jenner vaccinating a young child

Moving the Needle

Anti-vaxxers have been around as long as there have been vaccines.

Fragments follows three scholars attempting to decipher Euripides’ Cresphontes from a few damaged scraps of text.

Pieces and Bits

Older woman praying in an almost empty church.

Can Religion Be Helpful for People With Chronic Pain?

A group of researchers asked this question of a group of patients in secularized Western Europe.
Degradation of William Sawtrey

Unmaking a Priest: The Rite of Degradation

The defrocking ceremony was meant to humiliate a disgraced member of the clergy while discouraging laypeople from viewing him as a martyr.
A Trappist monk in the cloisters of a monastery in County Waterford, Ireland, 1935

The Irish Fasting Tradition

Particularly before the Second Vatican Council (a.k.a. Vatican II), fasting was part of the Catholic calendar. No one took it more seriously than the Irish.