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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.

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.

In the Limelight

Annie Edson Taylor, 1902

American Daredevils

The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.

Suggested Readings

Congolese park rangers conduct a combat patrol July 21, 2006 at Ishango in the Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Violent Conservation, Deep-Sea Art, and Early Printing

Well-researched stories from Undark, Mongabay, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Most Recent

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?
World welterweight champion Emile Griffith in training at the Thomas a Beckett Gymnasium in London, for his upcoming fight against Britain's Dave Charnley, November 20th, 1964

Masculinity, Boxing, and the “Wild Brawl” That Changed the Sport

Bennie “Kid” Paret and Emile Griffith were both ready to fight, but it was unlikely either boxer was prepared for the outcome of their final bout.
Exchange Coffee House, Boston

The First American Hotels

In the eighteenth century, if people in British North America had to travel, they stayed at public houses that were often just repurposed private homes.
Tina Turner

Why I Fell for Tina Turner

Empowerment, individual strength, and the many facets of love.

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.

In the Limelight

Annie Edson Taylor, 1902

American Daredevils

The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.

Suggested Readings

Congolese park rangers conduct a combat patrol July 21, 2006 at Ishango in the Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Violent Conservation, Deep-Sea Art, and Early Printing

Well-researched stories from Undark, Mongabay, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Long Reads

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.
Man typing on laptop. Subject view perspective. Wide angle.

A Bot Might Have Written This

ChatGPT is here. How can teachers and students proceed to use it with integrity?

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.