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Kahlil Gibran
Arts & Culture

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.

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.

Shared Collections

Chicano Brothers Car Club: Photograph of David Aguilar with a 1950 Chevrolet

The San Diego Lowrider Archival Project

The lessons of "low and slow."

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

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22A_Thrilling_Hallowe%27en.%22_(Three_black_cats_flying_through_the_air_with_Jack-o-lanterns).jpg
Roundup

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
Once Upon a Workplace

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
Reading Lists

“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.
English actress Jane Birkin and French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, at home in Paris.
Arts & Culture

Jane Birkin’s Famous Love (Sex) Song

How the songs of the 1960s and ’70s captured the sexual liberation of women.

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.

Shared Collections

Chicano Brothers Car Club: Photograph of David Aguilar with a 1950 Chevrolet

The San Diego Lowrider Archival Project

The lessons of "low and slow."

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.

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.
Kahlil Gibran
Arts & Culture

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.
Two arms with tattoos
Education & Society

Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?

And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus?

Long Reads

Fernando Pessoa, 1914
Arts & Culture

“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
Science & Technology

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
Arts & Culture

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.
Ismat Chughtai
Politics & History

Ismat Chughtai’s Quilt and Queer Desire

Long before India decriminalized homosexuality—in September 2018—the short story "Lihaaf" sparked outrage and a lawsuit for its depiction of same-sex, intergenerational intimacy.

Editors' Picks

Arts & Culture

Introducing Our Visual Literacy Column, “Learning to Look”

Developing visual literacy skills unlocks a means of understanding and engaging with the world that cannot be replaced by any text.
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.
Education & Society

Teaching U.S. History with JSTOR Daily

A survey course may be the only college-level history course a student takes. Here's an easy way to incorporate fascinating scholarship.
Education & Society

Academic Barbie: Scholarly Readings to Inspire Classroom Discussion

Barbie is having a(nother) moment. Researchers have been studying the famous doll for years.

Science & Technology

Ali Wallace, 1905

Ali: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Right-Hand Gun

Wallace wouldn't have become a famous naturalist without help from colonial networks and hundreds of locals, including his indefatigable Sarawak servant, Ali.
Guarana Fruit

Guaraná: Stimulation from the Amazon to the World

Long cherished by Indigenous peoples for its medicinal and stimulating properties, guaraná remains a key element of Brazilian identity.
Aerial view of Barringer crater in Arizona

The Eight Best Hidden Impact Craters on Earth

Many impact craters on Earth have been erased thanks to wind, water, and plate tectonics. But scientists have clever ways to find them.

Shared Collections on JSTOR

The Surprising Contents of an American POW’s Journal

There were 35 million prisoners of war held during World War II. One soldier's diary full of collages and drawings brings a human dimension to that number.

Making Egypt’s Museums

The world’s largest archaeological museum is poised to open on the Giza Plateau, building on two centuries of museum planning and development.

Eastern Kentucky University American Slavery Collection

Sixteen documents, including slave bills of sale, tell the cruel story of the enslaved lives that were listed in ledgers.

Syllabus

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.
A series of newspaper covers

Studying Women’s Prison Newspapers

Reveal Digital's American Prison Newspapers Collection offers first-person perspectives about what matters to women in prison, from pregnancy to recovery.
L'Envoûteuse (The Sorceress) by Georges Merle, 1883

Radical Theology: A Syllabus

Radical theology aims to construct revolutionary understandings of myth, ritual, and scripture that speak to the dearth of meaning in our contemporary moment.

Reading Lists

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.
Director Julie Dash poses for the movie "Daughters of the Dust," circa 1991

Feminist Film Theory: An Introductory Reading List

Evolving from the analysis of representations of women in film, feminist film theory asks questions about identity, sexuality, and the politics of spectatorship.

Scientists have three theories about why people and animals eat dirt.

The Question of Geophagy: Why Eat Dirt?

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

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.
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.

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.

Interviews

C. Buddy Creech

C. Buddy Creech: Your Vaccine Questions Answered

Vaccinologist C. Buddy Creech on getting vaccinated, racial disparities, and the lessons we’ve learned after a year of COVID-19.
3D render of coronavirus

We Spoke to a Public Health Expert about COVID-19

He made us feel better.
Jill Lepore

Jill Lepore: How to Respond to the Crisis of Our Institutions

Lepore talks about presidential deceit, why women are often forgotten by history, and the “epistemological crisis” of our era.

Sustainability & The Environment

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.

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