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Patrick White, ca. 1940
Arts & Culture

The Two Worlds of Patrick White

In writing and life, the Australian Nobel Laureate was ever preoccupied by the search for spiritual meaning and the fraught relationship between God and blundering humanity.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Flying Horse Of Gansu. Eastern Han dynasty, 25 - 220 AD.

The Supernatural Horses That Fascinated Chinese Emperors

In the second century BCE, Han Dynasty Emperor Wu so desired a herd of “blood-sweating” horses from Central Asia that he was willing to wage war over them.

Suggested Readings

Woman with purple hair enjoying music on black headphones with eyes closed against an orange background

Healing Music, Self-Coups, and Monkey Business

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

Archive Adventures

A collage of photographs by Doris Ulmann

The “Vanishing Types” of Doris Ulmann

As her extensive body of work shows, Ulmann felt the loss of an imagined simpler time and tried to preserve it with her camera.

Shared Collections

Can You Photograph a Ghost?

William Hope claimed to be able to document the visitations of ghosts. The controversial images he produced add to our understanding of the history of photography.

Most Recent

Çatalhöyük
The Where We Were

Çatalhöyük: Its Story Continues

Our understanding of the Neolithic city of Çatalhöyük continues to evolve as archaeologists challenge inherited biases in the face of new material evidence.
Frame from the movie La Coquille et le Clergyman (1928)
Art & Art History

Surrealism in Cinema, 100 Years On

A century after the publication of the first Surrealist manifesto, the role played by film in the movement is still unfolding.

More Stories

Cabinet of Curiosities

Flying Horse Of Gansu. Eastern Han dynasty, 25 - 220 AD.

The Supernatural Horses That Fascinated Chinese Emperors

In the second century BCE, Han Dynasty Emperor Wu so desired a herd of “blood-sweating” horses from Central Asia that he was willing to wage war over them.

Suggested Readings

Woman with purple hair enjoying music on black headphones with eyes closed against an orange background

Healing Music, Self-Coups, and Monkey Business

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

Archive Adventures

A collage of photographs by Doris Ulmann

The “Vanishing Types” of Doris Ulmann

As her extensive body of work shows, Ulmann felt the loss of an imagined simpler time and tried to preserve it with her camera.

Shared Collections

Can You Photograph a Ghost?

William Hope claimed to be able to document the visitations of ghosts. The controversial images he produced add to our understanding of the history of photography.

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.
Two arms with tattoos
Education & Society

Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?

And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus?
Patrick White, ca. 1940
Arts & Culture

The Two Worlds of Patrick White

In writing and life, the Australian Nobel Laureate was ever preoccupied by the search for spiritual meaning and the fraught relationship between God and blundering humanity.

Long Reads

Crowd entering the stadium at the 1896 Olympic marathon
Politics & History

The Invention of the Marathon

The Hellenic inspiration for the 26.2-mile races which draw over a million runners yearly worldwide had nothing to do with sport—but everything to do with war.
Politics & History

Portico’s Part in Telling the Story of Emmett Till

The Emmett Till Memory Project teaches new generations about the tragedy that kickstarted the Civil Rights Movement. Preserving its digital assets is vital.
Native American midwives weighing a crying Native Amerian child on a set of scales in the hospital at the Glacier National Park, in northwestern Montana, on the Canada–United States border, circa 1945
Health

Call the Midwives—Assuming Any Are Left

While midwife-attended deliveries are the norm in the United Kingdom, they’re the exception in the United States. Time was, this difference wasn’t so stark.
Poster for the film The Deadly Mantis, 1957
Arts & Culture

The War on Bugs

In the 1950s, supersized insects were the villains in a rash of big-screen horror movies. What did those monstrous roaches represent, and how were they vanquished?

Editors' Picks

Arts & Culture

James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni in Conversation

In 1971, two legends of Black letters discussed Black manhood, white racism, the role of the writer, and the responsibility to teach.
Science & Technology

Can We Build a Better Facebook?

Is it time to turn our back on Facebook? And if so, what social network could possibly replace it?
Science & Technology

The Anatomists of Ancient Alexandria

Cultural forces under the Ptolemaic dynasty briefly allowed scholars like Herophilus to practice dissection—and possibly vivisection—on human subjects.
Politics & History

The Genocide Before the Shoah

For a century, Jews in Turkey have maintained a strategic silence when it comes to recognizing the Armenian genocide. Could that be changing?
Politics & History

Wilhelm Reich: Twice Burned

A psychoanalyst and physician, Reich fled the Nazis only to be detained by the US as an “enemy alien” during World War II. And then came the sexual revolution.

Quirky History

Bay Area Renaissance Festival in Tampa Florida, 2011

Reasons for Re-Enacting at the Renaissance Faire

Why do we love donning period costumes and re-enacting our history through mock battles, pioneer villages, and Renaissance Faires?
An illustration of a Greyhound

How Al Capone Made Greyhound Racing Great

In the 1920s, Chicago became the greyhound racing capital of the country, thanks in part to the power of mobsters like Capone, who was a big fan.
Ludicrum chiromanticum Praetorii engraved title page emblematizes chiromancy's practical and philosophical components. In the center of the page a pair of hands flank a face; planetary symbols adorn their key features.

In the Palm of Your Hand

Palm reading, also known as palmistry or chiromancy, has fascinated us as a practice and a party trick for centuries.

Shared Collections on JSTOR

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.

A Selection of Student Confessions

Did you break a campus rule? Let the students of Millersville Normal School show you how to confess to the administration.
Site of house of Garðar Svavarson, the first house built in Iceland.

On the Anniversary of Iceland’s Independence

Iceland is celebrating its 80th anniversary. Three photograph collections shared on JSTOR show how much has—and hasn’t—changed on the island since independence.

Reading Lists

freelance working at train station before travel. work and travel concept

All Travelers are Infiltrators: An Introduction to the Study of Travel Writing

Travel writing as a genre has arguably been around for centuries, but it didn’t emerge as a distinct field of academic study until the 1980s.
Surrealist artists at the first Surrealist Exhibition to be held in London. Back row, from left, are Rupert Lee, Ruthven Todd, Salvador Dali, Paul Eluard, Roland Penrose, Herbert Read, E LT Mesens, George Reavey and Hugh Sykes-Davies. Front row, from left, Diana Lee, Nusch Eluard, Eileen Agar, Sheila Legge and unknown.

Surrealism at 100: A Reading List

On the centennial of the founding of Surrealism, this reading list examines its radical beginnings, its mass popularity, and its continued evolution.
A young woman sits on the grass with her baby, USA, circa 1975

Motherhood in America: A Reading List

The experience and work of motherhood remained understudied for generations, but since the 1970s, scholars have engaged with the topic in diverse ways.

Syllabus

Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.
"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 US politics.
An illustration of a hand holding a set of hand cuffs

A True Crime Syllabus

How did we become so obsessed with “true crime”? This multidisciplinary syllabus shows how we view crime as a whole and how those views have changed over time.

Until the rise of male-led obstetrics in the nineteenth century, childbirth was typically a women’s-only affair.

Call the Midwives—Assuming Any Are Left

Annotations

American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Agreement with Great Britain (unfinished oil sketch) by Benjamin West, between 1783 and 1784

The Treaty of Paris 1783: Annotated

The Treaty of Paris marked the end of the Revolutionary War and the hostilities between Great Britain and the newly independent United States—at least temporarily.
Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson’s Speech on the Indian Removal Act: Annotated

In December 1830, two months after the passage of the Indian Removal Act, President Andrew Jackson used his annual Congressional message to celebrate the policy.
Alexander Hamilton by Albert Rosenthal

The Federalist No. 1: Annotated

Alexander Hamilton’s anonymous essay challenged the voting citizens of New York to hold fast to the truth when deciding to ratify (or not) the US Constitution.

Roundup

An illustration of a thanksgiving table

Thanksgiving Stories

Turkey or Tofurkey? Stuffing or dressing? Whatever the controversy, these Thanksgiving stories will slake your appetite!
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22A_Thrilling_Hallowe%27en.%22_(Three_black_cats_flying_through_the_air_with_Jack-o-lanterns).jpg

Halloween Stories

Why are Victorians the default haunted house, what do ghosts have to do with the imagination, and why do we like to be scared?
Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

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

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

An incarcerated student attending an Indigenous Studies course at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, where they also have JSTOR access.

The Impact JSTOR in Prison Has Made on Me

Tim Johnson, serving a life sentence in North Carolina, shares how access to JSTOR creates opportunities that cultivate change in prison and beyond.
Viewing the projection of a solar eclipse using a colander

Watching an Eclipse from Prison

For incarcerated people, being able to experience something collectively with those beyond the walls is a type of reprieve that buoys the soul and psyche.
From the cover of Volume 7, Issue 6 of The Angolite, 1982

The Cost of Inflation in Prison

In prisons across the country, the long history of legal forced labor intersects with present-day inflation.

Mathematics

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.

Sustainability & The Environment

Mjøstårnet skyscraper, Norway

Sustainable Building Effort Reaches New Heights with Wooden Skyscrapers

Wood engineered for strength and safety offers architects an alternative to carbon-intensive steel and concrete.
Close up hand of voter placing ballot in ballot box

Voting as a Tool for Environmental Justice

Casting a vote at your local polling place helps elect candidates who can enact environmental policies while in office. But is voting enough to bring change?
A compressor station of the Jagal natural gas pipeline stands as wind turbines spin behind on May 24, 2023 near Mallnow, Germany.

Bye-Bye, Russian Gas!

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked an energy revolution, forcing European states to reconsider their dependence on Russian oil imports.

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