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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.

Read Before You Go

View of the Rock of Gibraltar as seen from the Sierra Carbonera Mountains of Cadiz, Spain

Gibraltar: Where Two Worlds Meet, the Monkeys Roam

Home to the genetically unique Barbary macaques, Gibraltar serves up an intriguing mix of European cultures to residents and tourists alike.

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."

The Where We Were

Weston Havens House

Searching for Queer Spaces

The dominant heteroview of architectural history means we may lose our queer spaces and their histories before we even know they exist.

Suggested Readings

Great Chocolate, Emotional Capitalism, and Goat Teeth

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

Most Recent

William Maclure
Education

A Boatload of Knowledge for New Harmony

Leaders of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences voyaged down the Ohio River in 1825–1826, taking academic education on a journey in search of utopia.
Announcer
Arts & Culture

How did 1960s Jacksonville Become a Musical Hotspot?

Short answer: crime.
Mathilde “Missy” de Morny
Arts & Culture

The Cross-Dressing Superstar of the Belle Époque

Mathilde de Morny's commitment to a masculine aesthetic and a non-traditional lifestyle in nineteenth-century France challenged the boundaries of gender identity.
Deep Jet Streams in Jupiter's Atmosphere
Natural Science

Could You Stand on the Surface of Jupiter? Exploring the Enigmatic Outer Planets

The outer planets’ clouds hide the weirdness within.

More Stories

Read Before You Go

View of the Rock of Gibraltar as seen from the Sierra Carbonera Mountains of Cadiz, Spain

Gibraltar: Where Two Worlds Meet, the Monkeys Roam

Home to the genetically unique Barbary macaques, Gibraltar serves up an intriguing mix of European cultures to residents and tourists alike.

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."

The Where We Were

Weston Havens House

Searching for Queer Spaces

The dominant heteroview of architectural history means we may lose our queer spaces and their histories before we even know they exist.

Suggested Readings

Great Chocolate, Emotional Capitalism, and Goat Teeth

Well-researched stories from Smithsonian Magazine, Sapiens, 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.
Deep Jet Streams in Jupiter's Atmosphere
Natural Science

Could You Stand on the Surface of Jupiter? Exploring the Enigmatic Outer Planets

The outer planets’ clouds hide the weirdness within.
Two arms with tattoos
Education & Society

Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?

And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus?

Long Reads

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.
An 18th Century pornographic cartoon featuring Marie Antoinette and the great French General and politician Lafayette, c. 1790
Education & Society

No Joke

Using humor to mask and normalize hatred and bigotry has a long, ugly history.

Editors' Picks

Politics & History

The Pan-American Highway and the Darién Gap

The Pan-American Highway began a century ago with a vision of unfettered motor-vehicle access between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego. What happened to the dream?
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.
Arts & Culture

Labor Day: A Celebration of Working in America

Our best stories about workers' rights, labor unions, and international movements to improve working conditions, from the factory to the farm.
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.
Politics & History

Transgender Legal Battles: A Timeline

New laws regarding transgender youth are based on the assumption that the gender binary is natural.

Science & Technology

Deep Jet Streams in Jupiter's Atmosphere

Could You Stand on the Surface of Jupiter? Exploring the Enigmatic Outer Planets

The outer planets’ clouds hide the weirdness within.
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?
Plate Tectonics Diagram

How Plate Tectonics Shook Life into Existence

The cycles of life all rely on the dynamism of the Earth’s crust.

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

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.
Mothers' Crusade for Victory over Communism

Moral Panics: A Syllabus

Research-backed stories that consider how and why moral panics begin and spread, who they serve, and what becomes of them in the end.

Reading Lists

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.
Young black student studying at night at home, with a help of a laptop computer.

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.

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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