Skip to content
Arts & Culture

What If We’ve Been Misunderstanding Monsters?

Fictional evil creatures might be more nuanced—and have more to teach us—than has long seemed.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Façade of the cabarets Le Ciel and L'Enfer, 1909

The Cabarets of Heaven and Hell

In 1890s Paris, cabarets in bohemian Montmartre gave visitors a chance to tour the afterlife.

Roundup

Photographs of white snowflakes on a dark blue background.

Winter Holidays

Celebrate with some seasonal scholarship from JSTOR Daily for the winter holidays.

Black Radicals

Cedric Robinson

Cedric Robinson and the Black Radical Tradition

Cedric Robinson proposed that the Black radical tradition was necessitated into existence by “racial capitalism.”

Plant of the Month

An illustration of elderberry

Plant of the Month: Elderberry

The recent entrance of elderberry into mainstream success is marked by an increasing popular desire to engage with traditional, “natural” remedies.

Most Recent

Acland servants in 1897 by Sarah Angelina Acland
Politics & History

Who Does the Drudge Work? Answers from Edwardian Britain

In 1909, Kathlyn Oliver called for the creation of a servants' trade union that was “as important to the community as the worker[s] in any other sphere."
Two silhouettes of faces with squiggly lines between them
Suggested Readings

Mind-Reading, New Dino, and Enslaved Women’s Resistance

Well-researched stories from The New Yorker, Black Perspectives, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Photograph: Marley Shelton, Marla Sokoloff and the rest of the girls at a sleepover in a scene from the film 'Sugar & Spice', 2001 Source: Getty
Politics & History

Slumber Parties and Folklore

Slumber party rituals are indeed alive and well, and being passed down to the next generation in person and online.
Open Community Collections

Message in a Button

A dive into the the University of Connecticut Pins and Button Collection gives a wearable history of progressive causes.

More Stories

Cabinet of Curiosities

Façade of the cabarets Le Ciel and L'Enfer, 1909

The Cabarets of Heaven and Hell

In 1890s Paris, cabarets in bohemian Montmartre gave visitors a chance to tour the afterlife.

Roundup

Photographs of white snowflakes on a dark blue background.

Winter Holidays

Celebrate with some seasonal scholarship from JSTOR Daily for the winter holidays.

Black Radicals

Cedric Robinson

Cedric Robinson and the Black Radical Tradition

Cedric Robinson proposed that the Black radical tradition was necessitated into existence by “racial capitalism.”

Plant of the Month

An illustration of elderberry

Plant of the Month: Elderberry

The recent entrance of elderberry into mainstream success is marked by an increasing popular desire to engage with traditional, “natural” remedies.

Trending

An illustration of Incan ceremonies
Arts & Culture

How an Incan Nobleman Contested Spanish History

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala left behind a one-of-a-kind object that undermines the crónicas de Indias.
English Herbarium
Education & Society

Herbs & Verbs: How to Do Witchcraft for Real

Like for real real.
Oklahoma panhandle
Politics & History

Why Oklahoma Has a Panhandle

The long, strange story of why Oklahoma has that panhandle.

Long Reads

Sunlight and Shadow by Albert Bierstadt
Education & Society

Do We Actually See Shadows?

In a blackout, you do not hear or taste the darkness; you see it. It looks a certain way. On the philosophy of shadows.
An illustration depicting a face made out of circuits that dissolves into a cloud filled with screenshots of streaming television and movie title images
Arts & Culture

Are You Still Watching?

The work of cinema in the age of streaming services.
L'Envoûteuse (The Sorceress) by Georges Merle, 1883
Education & Society

Feminism’s Hidden Spiritual Side

Sometimes the pursuit of gender equality requires a little witchcraft.
Illustration: Reconstruction drawing of public Latrine at Forum Hadriani, Germania Inferior, Netherlands Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/carolemage/9548853868
Politics & History

The Early History of Human Excreta

When humans stopped being nomadic, we could no longer walk away from our waste. We’ve been battling it ever since.

Editors' Picks

Education & Society

Baking Vs. Roasting

We cook bread, meat, and vegetables much the same way: in our ovens. So why do we say we "bake" bread, but we "roast" meat and veggies?
Arts & Culture

Migrants, Refugees, and Expats: How Humanity Comes in Waves

The language we use for people fleeing their home nations may define them as less than human.
Arts & Culture

American Film’s Disappearing Lesbians

In the 1990s, lesbian characters were repeatedly transformed into "close friends" in film adaptions of LGBTQ-themed books.
Arts & Culture

“Telling the Bees”

In nineteenth-century New England, it was held to be essential to whisper to beehives of a loved one’s death.
Education & Society

Are Classroom Holiday Parties Constitutional?

Can schools let students and teachers celebrate religions holidays without violating the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause?

Art & Art History

A Happy Christmastide

Share These Victorian Holiday Cards

It's all birds and flowers and kittens in these greeting cards. May they, as one of the cards says, keep winter from your heart.
Mario Montez

How Latin Camp Rocked the New York Underground

Puerto Rican queers produced theater and film that made them mainstays of the New York underground arts movement of the 1950s and ’60s.
A reliquary shrine attributed to Jean de Touyl, ca. 1325-50

What’s in the Box? The Art of Reliquaries

The cult of relics dates back to the second and third centuries, when Christian martyrs were often killed in ways that fragmented the body.

Open Community Collections on JSTOR

Message in a Button

A dive into the the University of Connecticut Pins and Button Collection gives a wearable history of progressive causes.
A Happy Christmastide

Share These Victorian Holiday Cards

It's all birds and flowers and kittens in these greeting cards. May they, as one of the cards says, keep winter from your heart.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: A History in Pictures

In 1927, the parade replaced live animals with helium balloons designed by puppeteer Tony Sarg.

Audio Stories

An abstract spectrum of colored dots on a black background that cohere together to represent sound waves or a music equalizer.

How to Hear Images and See Sounds

Artists Shannon Finnegan and Andy Slater talk accessibility, transdimensional hearing, alt-text as poetry, sound descriptions, and Instagram captions for McSweeney’s Audio Issue.
Oak tree

What Does a Tree See?

A hundred-year-old red oak in a Massachusetts forest told a writer and a team of scientists secrets about change over time.
The Bitter Potion by Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1636 - 1638

Is Disgust Related to Morality?

The disgust response acts as a behavioral immune system, protecting us from disease, but produces strong reactions to perceived out-groups.

Aphrodisiac and contraceptive, enflaming and cooling, the pomegranate was a balancing act, mediating between opposing states.

The Paradoxical Pomegranate

Reading Lists

An illustration of a revolver

Guns in America: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings on the role of guns in US history and society introduces the field as a subject of scholarly inquiry.
A view of part of the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim on January 28, 2020 in Maale Adumim, West Bank.

Settlements and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Background Reading

Scholarship about Israeli settlement in occupied Palestinian territories provides historical context for recent violence in the region.
Employees of Ottenheimer on strike for poor treatment

The Global History of Labor and Race: Foundations and Key Concepts

How have workers around the world sought to change their conditions, and how have racial divisions affected their efforts?

Syllabus

Planet Earth from Space

Climate Change: A Syllabus

A selection of stories to foster dialogue among students both inside and outside of the classroom.
Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Politics and Power in the United States: A Syllabus

Historical and scholarly context for the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
"I Voted" stickers

Voting in American Politics: A Syllabus

From battles to expand the franchise to the mysteries of turnout, voting is one of the most important things to understand about U.S. politics.

Social History

Acland servants in 1897 by Sarah Angelina Acland

Who Does the Drudge Work? Answers from Edwardian Britain

In 1909, Kathlyn Oliver called for the creation of a servants' trade union that was “as important to the community as the worker[s] in any other sphere."
Photograph: Marley Shelton, Marla Sokoloff and the rest of the girls at a sleepover in a scene from the film 'Sugar & Spice', 2001 Source: Getty

Slumber Parties and Folklore

Slumber party rituals are indeed alive and well, and being passed down to the next generation in person and online.

Message in a Button

A dive into the the University of Connecticut Pins and Button Collection gives a wearable history of progressive causes.

Plants & Animals

The Quiet eDNA Revolution Transforming Conservation

The aquatic monitoring tool has powerful potential.
The oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis

The True Costs of Invasive Species

The time between species arrival and the onset of management is critical to determining the ultimate cost of an invasive species.
A green Oregon Oak covered in moss with many branches

What is Old Growth, and Why It Matters

Old growth forests are often famed for their beauty, cultural and historical significance. But there's more to old growth than just the age of the trees.

Film & Media

The cast of the new Gossip GirlThe cast of the new Gossip Girl

Gossip Girls (and Boys)

Researchers found that male and female adolescents may respond differently to gossip or other forms of social aggression.
An illustration depicting a face made out of circuits that dissolves into a cloud filled with screenshots of streaming television and movie title images

Are You Still Watching?

The work of cinema in the age of streaming services.
Flag of Mohawk Warriors Society

How the Media Framed the Oka Crisis as Terrorism

For over two months in 1990, Indigenous activists defended Kanien'kehá:ka lands against encroachment. They were portrayed negatively.

Support JSTOR Daily

Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news.