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A love potion against a colorful background
Love Week

What’s in a Love Potion?

Besides the infamous Number Nine, that is.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Pope Formosus and Stephen VI by Jean Paul Laurens, 1870

The Cadaver Synod: Putting a Dead Pope on Trial

Why did Pope Stephen VI go to such great lengths to destroy an enemy who was already dead?

Love Week

from Suite Vénitienne by Sophie Calle

Love, Obsession, and Sophie Calle

The conceptual artist Sophie Calle creates art that urges us to ask, is attention the same as love?

Lingua Obscura

A couple expressing affection

The Language of Your Love Life

Pet names and baby talk between lovers can be cringe-worthy and even incriminating. So why do couples use such lovey-dovey language?

Suggested Readings

Piggy bank

Wealth Taxes, Embodied Words, and Ancient Comedy

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

Most Recent

A tarsier
Plants & Animals

Can Wildlife Adapt to Heat Waves?

Heatwaves have led to widespread deaths of animals like big-eyed tarsiers and flying foxes. Is there hope for species like this as temperatures rise?
James Joyce in front of a flowery background
Love Week

James Joyce’s NSFW Love Letters

The often explicit letters James Joyce wrote to Nora Barnacle contain the same mass of contradictions as his famous literary works, like Ulysses.
A teenage girl kissing a teenage boy on the cheek
Love Week

Media Representation and Interracial Couples

Recent years have seen increases in both interracial adolescent romances and portrayals of young interracial relationships. What's the connection?
An illustration from an 1897 edition of Persuasion
Love Week

The Physical Pleasures of Jane Austen’s Persuasion

Smoldering glances? Romantic letters? Forbidden love? Why Persuasion may be the most seductive of Jane Austen's novels.

More Stories

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Felicitación de cumpleaños by Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta
Love Week

The Disappointing Reality of 19th-Century Courtship

For white, middle-class women in the 19th century U.S., courtship and marriage offered less emotional intimacy than their friendships with other women.
A collection of romance novels
Love Week

The Business of the Romance Novel

How romance novels—despite their decided lack of cultural clout—became big business for the publishing industry.
Declaration of Independence
Politics & Government

Who Wrote the Declaration of Independence?

The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Thomas Jefferson was not then credited with its authorship.

Black History Month

Student in a Black Studies class in a west side Chicago classroom, 1973
Reading Lists

African American Studies: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings in African American Studies highlights the vibrant history of the discipline and introduces the field.
JSTOR Daily celebrates Black History Month
Roundup

Celebrating Black History Month

JSTOR Daily editors pick their favorite stories for Black History Month.
Art Is (Girlfriends Times Two)
Art & Art History

Visiting “Soul of a Nation”

A new exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum asks: Is there a Black aesthetic?
Black Poets
Arts & Culture

10 Poems by African-American Poets

Poems by African-American poets, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Kwame Dawes, Rita Dove, Langston Hughes, Tyehimba Jess, Kevin Young, and more.

Editors' Picks

Arts & Culture

Ten Favorite Love Poems

Love poems by Pablo Neruda, Joyce Carol Oates, Kenneth Koch, Willie Perdomo, Robert Penn Warren, Edith Wharton, and more.
Arts & Culture

Why We Still Love The Twilight Zone

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone stood out in the "vast wasteland" of television in the early 1960s and still resonates today.
Science & Technology

How to Build the Netflix of Love

There's no shortage of online dating sites and apps. But there’s one common problem with these services: they’re all looking at the wrong data. Dating apps should take a hint from Netflix's algorithm.
Arts & Culture

Why Adults Love Comic Books

There's more to comic books than bright colors, gratiutious violence, and whimsy. Comics tells stories that are deeply significant to their readers.
Education & Society

Do Dating Apps Cheapen Love?

Dating apps and services have been accused of cheapening the dominant Western conception of love. One scholar begs to differ.

Arts & Culture

James Joyce in front of a flowery background

James Joyce’s NSFW Love Letters

The often explicit letters James Joyce wrote to Nora Barnacle contain the same mass of contradictions as his famous literary works, like Ulysses.
A teenage girl kissing a teenage boy on the cheek

Media Representation and Interracial Couples

Recent years have seen increases in both interracial adolescent romances and portrayals of young interracial relationships. What's the connection?
An illustration from an 1897 edition of Persuasion

The Physical Pleasures of Jane Austen’s Persuasion

Smoldering glances? Romantic letters? Forbidden love? Why Persuasion may be the most seductive of Jane Austen's novels.

Long Reads

Love, Sex, and Cyanide—The Private Life of a Toxic Butterfly

Heliconian butterflies choose mates with similar wing patterns. Their genes make them do it.
Student in a Black Studies class in a west side Chicago classroom, 1973

African American Studies: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings in African American Studies highlights the vibrant history of the discipline and introduces the field.
Kimpa Vita and a map of Kongo

Did Kongolese Catholicism Lead to Slave Revolutions?

The legacy of Kimpa Vita, a Kongolese Catholic mystic, was felt from the U.S. to Haiti.

Simply put, Netflix and Spotify and Facebook and Amazon know way more about us than the yentas and matchmakers of yore.

How to Build the Netflix of Love

Politics & Government

The war elephants of Phyrrus at the battle of Asculum, 279 B.C.

How “Pyrrhic Victory” Became a Go-To Metaphor

We call futile victories "pyrrhic," after an ancient Roman battle. But that battle may have been misinterpreted--or had a different conclusion altogether.
An illustration of a TSA security checkpoint

Why Can’t the TSA Just Go on Strike?

The post-9/11 expansion of federal powers over transportation security was also an extension of power over the security workforce.
A jury box in a courtroom in Texas.

Why Do We Still Use Juries?

The history of juries is actually quite revolutionary.

Sustainability & The Environment

Love, Sex, and Cyanide—The Private Life of a Toxic Butterfly

Heliconian butterflies choose mates with similar wing patterns. Their genes make them do it.

Climate Change Turns Cute Birds into Brain-Eating Zombies

European great tits kill migratory pied flycatchers over nesting sites. The warming weather is to blame.
A seismic survey vessel

How Offshore Oil Exploration Affects Marine Life

Offshore oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic Ocean will involve seismic blasts, which may be harmful to whales and marine mammals.

Education

Poster shows Uncle Sam playing a fife, leading a group of children carrying gardening tools and a seed bag.

The First School Gardens

In the early 1900s, immigration and child labor laws resulted in growing numbers of schoolchildren. Gardens were seen as a way to keep them under control.
Student with practice baby at Cornell University

When Home Ec Classes Borrowed Babies

In the early-to-mid 20th century, foster children in Canada and elsewhere were placed in practice homes and cared for by home economics students.
A classroom of white students in the 19th century

White Women’s Role in School Segregation

White American women have long played significant roles in maintaining racist practices. One sociologist calls the phenomenon "social mothering."