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Politics & History

Libraries and Pandemics: Past and Present

The 1918 influenza pandemic had a profound impact on how librarians do their work, transforming libraries into centers of community care.

Security State of Mind

President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an Executive Order on the economy

Semiconductor Shortages End an Era of Globalization

Our security studies columnist on leanness, supply chains, and resilience in a post-pandemic world.

Public Intellectuals

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.

Black Radicals

Statue of Benkos Biohó in San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia

Black Conquistadors and Black Maroons

Some formerly enslaved Blacks and freedmen accompanied the Spanish invaders; others formed their own communities.

Reading Lists

Clockwise: Nicole Sealey, Ishion Hutchinson, Marilyn Nelson, How Nguyen, Cathy Park Hong, WS Merwin

Sonnets by 11 Contemporary Poets

The name of this fourteen-line poetic form comes from the Italian sonetto, meaning "a little sound or song."

Most Recent

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.29877673
Open Community Collections

Calling All Anglophiles

Celebrate Spring with these watercolor paintings of wildflowers by Margaret Rebecca Dickinson.
Depressed teen girl in black clothes playing guitar sitting on bed in her room.
Science & Technology

Why Do We Listen to Sad Music?

Scientists investigate the emotional and physical effects of sad music, in an ongoing quest to explain the "paradox of pleasurable sadness."
An illustration from the Bantam edition of Graham Greene's The Quiet American
Arts & Culture

When the CIA Was Everywhere—Except on Screen

Hollywood was just fine avoiding all portrayals of the Central Intelligence Agency for years after the agency's founding in 1947.
Medieval illumination of a dog, 14th century, from a Codex in the Czech Republic
Politics & History

The Hardworking Dogs of Medieval Europe

Not everyone can be a pampered pooch.

More Stories

Security State of Mind

President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an Executive Order on the economy

Semiconductor Shortages End an Era of Globalization

Our security studies columnist on leanness, supply chains, and resilience in a post-pandemic world.

Public Intellectuals

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.

Black Radicals

Statue of Benkos Biohó in San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia

Black Conquistadors and Black Maroons

Some formerly enslaved Blacks and freedmen accompanied the Spanish invaders; others formed their own communities.

Reading Lists

Clockwise: Nicole Sealey, Ishion Hutchinson, Marilyn Nelson, How Nguyen, Cathy Park Hong, WS Merwin

Sonnets by 11 Contemporary Poets

The name of this fourteen-line poetic form comes from the Italian sonetto, meaning "a little sound or song."

Trending

Politics & History

Libraries and Pandemics: Past and Present

The 1918 influenza pandemic had a profound impact on how librarians do their work, transforming libraries into centers of community care.
President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an Executive Order on the economy
Security State of Mind

Semiconductor Shortages End an Era of Globalization

Our security studies columnist on leanness, supply chains, and resilience in a post-pandemic world.
English Herbarium
Education & Society

Herbs & Verbs: How to Do Witchcraft for Real

Like for real real.

Long Reads

Plain illuminated partially covered by fog, soft lights
Plants & Animals

Shedding Light on the Cost of Light Pollution

Artificial light has a huge variety of harmful effects on ecosystems. Scientists are exploring ways to mitigate the damage.
An image representing negentropy
Natural Science

Could Negentropy Help Your Life Run Smoother?

In physics, entropy is the process of a system losing energy and dissolving into chaos. This applies to social systems in everyday life, too.
Donald Trump's face in the shape of the Twitter logo
Politics & Government

Is There a First Amendment Right to Tweet?

How social media companies have imported relatively restrictive European free speech norms to the US.
Photo taken in the Bourbaki Congress of 1938 in Dieulefit
Mathematics

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.

Editors' Picks

Interviews

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.
Politics & History

The Case for Reparations Is Nothing New

In fact, Black activists and civil rights leaders have been advocating for compensation for the trauma and cost of slavery for centuries.
Business & Economics

Semiconductor Shortages End an Era of Globalization

Our security studies columnist on leanness, supply chains, and resilience in a post-pandemic world.
Education & Society

Why Didn’t the Rodney King Video Lead to a Conviction?

The grainy pictures speak for themselves. Or so thought many Americans who watched the video of the March 3rd, 1991, beating of motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.
Politics & History

A Formerly Enslaved Woman Successfully Won a Case for Reparations in 1783

In one of the earliest examples of reparations, an ex-slave named Belinda petitioned the government and was granted an annuity.

Performing Arts

Act 3 Scene 2 of "As You Like It"

Are We Getting Shakespeare’s Rhythms All Wrong?

Trippingly on the tongue? Yeah, right.
Matilda Sissieretta Jones, known as Black Patti

The Life of Matilda Sissieretta Jones

Nearly forgotten today, Jones thrilled audiences with classical music performances at the end of the nineteenth century.
Seydou Keïta

Celebrating Black Artists

Profiles of Betye Saar, Krista Franklin, Miles Davis, Basquiat, Kanye West, Faith Ringgold and more.

Open Community Collections on JSTOR

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.29877673

Calling All Anglophiles

Celebrate Spring with these watercolor paintings of wildflowers by Margaret Rebecca Dickinson.
Alexis Ward's Lockdown Art

Preserving the History of Coronavirus in Queens

Curator Annie Tummino on the Queens College COVID-19 Collection.

A New Civil Rights Movement, a New Journal

Freedomways, the African American journal of politics and culture chronicled the civil rights and Black freedom movements starting in the early 1960s. Read it on JSTOR.

Syllabus

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.
Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

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

Decomposing trees on the forest floor become “dead wood”—a part of ecosystems that researchers are only beginning to understand.

What Happens to a Tree When It Dies?

Plant of the Month

Plant of the Month: Cordyline

Plantfluencers? Back in the nineteenth century, it was the dazzling leaves of cordyline that set trends in domestic style.
Fuchsia

Plant of the Month: Fuchsia

Too popular for its own good? The career of a flower so powerfully beautiful, fashion would inevitably declare it over.
Cinnamomum verum

Plant of the Month: Cinnamon

Of early modern medicinal monopolies and the nature of a "true" product of empire.

Verbatim

Zora Neale Hurston, 1937

Zora Neale Hurston

In a controversial letter, the versatile author expressed frustration with critics of segregation.
Jones Edward Salk

Verbatim: Jonas Salk

Virologist Jonas Salk led the team that developed the breakthrough vaccine for polio. He was also a social critic.
A devil shaking hands with a student

Rare 1969 Story from The Queen’s Gambit Author Walter Tevis

In this short story a graduate student makes a deal with the devil: Write my dissertation and my soul is yours.

World History

A Japanese woman cuts up radishes in her kitchen

The Unlikely Role of Kitchens in Occupied Japan

After World War II, "occupationaries" tried to spread American-style domesticity to Japanese women.
Roman ivory doll from the mid-2nd century AD

Girls and Dolls in the Roman Empire

Analyzing the dolls of elite girls shows that playthings reinforced gendered expectations but also allowed for imaginative play.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Suicides_of_Meleager_and_Althea_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Why Suicide Was a Sin in Medieval Europe

Although there were historical and scriptural precedents for honorable suicide, Christian theology saw it much differently.

Religion

Metropolitan Community Church of Washington DC

The Origins of LGBTQ-Affirming Churches

As far back as the 1940s, religious LGBTQ people organized groups and congregations that welcomed them.
Two arms with tattoos

Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?

And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus?
The coronation of Charlemagne

Making Sense of the Divine Right of Kings

The United States threw off the yoke of a king more than two centuries ago. Funny how we can't get enough of our erstwhile sovereigns today.

Technology

Disintegrating Head Of David On Pink Background

What’s the Deal with Crypto Art?

Thirty years after the invention of blockchain, an artist sold a JPG using that technology for nearly $70 million. Huh?
Bell Rocket Belt

The Rise and Fall of the Jet Pack

Well, mostly the fall.
Test tubes

The Invention of the Test Tube

Chemists learned to blow their own glass vessels in the nineteenth century. It definitely beat using wine glasses.

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