Skip to content
The cover of Lost Literacies: Experiments in the Nineteenth-Century US Comic Strip

Lost Literacies Strips Down the Dawn of Comics

In his new book, literary historian Alex Beringer demonstrates how the birth of the genre of printed comic long preceded the Sunday Funny Pages.

In the Limelight

In the Stereoscope, Another World

Developed in the nineteenth century, the stereoscope gave people a new way of seeing themselves and the world around them.

Suggested Readings

Hexe mit Pilzmännchen by Franz Wacik

Witches, Earth’s Rings, and Freud’s Patient Zero

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

Cabinet of Curiosities

Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, cuoco secreto di Papa Pio V

The Wild West of Papal Conclaves

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the death of a pope led to all sorts of chaos, from the destruction of art to armed violence in the streets.

Roundup

Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.

Most Recent

Fredric Jameson, 2008

Verbatim: Fredric Jameson

Marxist cultural critic Fredric Jameson offered a philosophy of late capitalism that gave us a language for talking about globalization and the end of modernism.
F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, 1923

Zelda Fitzgerald on F. Scott’s Writing

Zelda’s satirical review of F. Scott's second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, revealed much more than her wit.

More Stories

In the Limelight

In the Stereoscope, Another World

Developed in the nineteenth century, the stereoscope gave people a new way of seeing themselves and the world around them.

Suggested Readings

Hexe mit Pilzmännchen by Franz Wacik

Witches, Earth’s Rings, and Freud’s Patient Zero

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

Cabinet of Curiosities

Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, cuoco secreto di Papa Pio V

The Wild West of Papal Conclaves

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the death of a pope led to all sorts of chaos, from the destruction of art to armed violence in the streets.

Roundup

Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.

Long Reads

Two glass of fresh pure water on white background with sunlight deep shadow of glass.

Before Brita: A Brief History of Water Filtration

From ancient Egypt to post-industrial London, societies have long recognized the benefits of clean water and—mostly—have done what they can to provide it.
The Suffragette Down with the Tom Cats

A Purrrrfect Political Storm

Crazy cat ladies have come to dominate this election season. It’s hardly the first time.
"Fresh, red cloves grow on the branch, green leaves. Zanzibar, Tanzania"

Cloves: The Spice that Enriched Empires

Behind one humble spice lies a complex history of empires and profit, commodities and globalization.
A man in drag and a man in male clothes looking into each others' eyes. Photographic postcard.

Preserving History at the Digital Transgender Archive with Portico

Portico helps preserve underrepresented community content and collections, including the wide-ranging materials of the Digital Transgender Archive.

Huxley approached the drug with the curiosity of an intellectual and the calculation of a scholar.

When Aldous Huxley Dropped Acid

Doing Math with Intellectual Humility

Math class is an opportunity to teach students both how to use conjecture to arrive at knowledge and how to learn from the logic of peers.
Photo taken in the Bourbaki Congress of 1938 in Dieulefit

The Mathematical Pranksters behind Nicolas Bourbaki

Bourbaki was gnomic and mythical, impossible to pin down; his mathematics just the opposite: unified, unambiguous, free of human idiosyncrasy.
Karate chop

The Physics of Karate

A human hand has the power to split wooden planks and demolish concrete blocks. A trio of physicists investigated why this feat doesn't shatter our bones.