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A caricature of the Berners Street Hoax by William Heath, 1810

Is “Swatting” Rooted in a Prank Craze from the 1800s?

Why did Georgian-era England go mad for dangerous hoaxes, and what can that mania tell us about today’s volatile, content-hungry world?

Unearthing Justice

Did “Big Oil” Sell Us on a Recycling Scam?

Our focus on recycling to save the planet may be missing the mark.

Brain Time, Mountain Streams, and Rawls the Radical

Well-researched stories from Eos, Black Perspectives, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Coco De Mer: The Magical Derrière of the Sea

Once viewed as a precious item of mysterious origin, the seed of the coco do mer palm, though better understood today, remains a rare and valuable commodity.

Plant of the Month

Juneberry: A Summer Sweet for People, Pollinators, and Birds

For millennia, Indigenous peoples in North America derived sustenance from the juneberry, known also as the misâskwatômin, serviceberry, shadbush, or saskatoon.

Most Recent

Amazing Baby Beach and coast on Aruba, Caribbean, white beach with blue ocean tropical beach during summer

Read Before You Go

Aruba: Black Gold and Boas

What happens when an oil-rich island paradise interrupts its production of petroleum? You may have to visit the Caribbean island of Aruba to find out.

Coronation of a Black Queen on the Day of Kings by Carlos Julião, c. 1770

Education & Society

The Roots of Catholic Samba

Since the early days of African enslavement in Brazil, Black Brazilians have cultivated rituals that mix Catholic and African elements in the form of holy Samba.

Unearthing Justice

Did “Big Oil” Sell Us on a Recycling Scam?

Our focus on recycling to save the planet may be missing the mark.

Brain Time, Mountain Streams, and Rawls the Radical

Well-researched stories from Eos, Black Perspectives, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Coco De Mer: The Magical Derrière of the Sea

Once viewed as a precious item of mysterious origin, the seed of the coco do mer palm, though better understood today, remains a rare and valuable commodity.

Plant of the Month

Juneberry: A Summer Sweet for People, Pollinators, and Birds

For millennia, Indigenous peoples in North America derived sustenance from the juneberry, known also as the misâskwatômin, serviceberry, shadbush, or saskatoon.

Racist Humor: Exploratory Readings

An introduction to the history and theory of racist humor and the social role it plays in Western societies.

Arrival of the Brides by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

Politics & History

Filles du roi: the Founding Mothers of New France

Sent by Louis XIV, the filles du roi were sent to North America to birth new generations of colonists and help conquer the land.

Pedagogies

Lies, Damn Lies, and…Primary Sources?

An instructor shares her approach for teaching students how to evaluate historical materials and claims of veracity made by their originators.

Long Reads

Politics & History

Filles du roi: the Founding Mothers of New France

Sent by Louis XIV, the filles du roi were sent to North America to birth new generations of colonists and help conquer the land.

Politics & History

Pan-Asianism Redux, or Why We Think Japan Is Special

Observers have long hailed Japan’s aptitude for cultural synthesis. Is this characterization warranted, or does it reflect a collective fantasy about exceptionalism?

A child reading about the phases and rings of Saturn

Education

Science Lit for Kids Holds a Mirror Aloft

Over decades, books that rouse children’s interest in the natural world have morphed in style and approach—an evolution reflective of tectonic societal change.

Arts & Culture

Tolstoy’s Christian Anarchism

A fateful visit to a market in Moscow entirely upended Tolstoy’s view on life and society—and changed the trajectory of his work and purpose.

Editors' Picks

Politics & History

The Trouble with Reentry

Reentry of space junk in the 1970s forced First Nations communities into a reckoning with Cold War geopolitics and a burgeoning envirotechnical disaster.

Politics & History

Iran’s Protest Culture

A succession of authoritarian regimes birthed a strong tradition of collective action.

Arts & Culture

Tyler S. Sprague on the Intersection of Structure and Design

An interview with Tyler S. Sprague, a historian of the built environment whose work depends on multidisciplinarity and a deep knowledge of structure and materials.

Arts & Culture

12 Poems by Frank O’Hara

Plus his manifesto on Personism and writings about O’Hara by Ted Berrigan, Joseph LeSueur, and Joe Brainard.

Politics & History

How to be a Modern Autocrat

In the twenty-first century, dictators are less likely than their predecessors to use violence to suppress dissent, cultivating instead “informational autocracies.”

Quirky History

Shadowbox with a wedding photograph of a bride and groom, surrounded by the bride's veil

First Comes Love

A top divorce lawyer collected strangers’ marriage certificates and other wedding-related ephemera—a testament to her perhaps surprising faith in matrimony.

The Ever-Lengthening History of Tobacco

People have been smoking in the Pacific Northwest for more than 4,500 years.

French Canadians in the New England Woods

Immigrants from Quebec held a distinct position in an American labor landscape in which experts viewed different “races” as being suited to different kinds of work.

Collections on JSTOR

First Comes Love

A top divorce lawyer collected strangers’ marriage certificates and other wedding-related ephemera—a testament to her perhaps surprising faith in matrimony.

From Oriental Riviera to Global Asia: Hong Kong in Travel Posters

A collection of travel posters shared via JSTOR by Hong Kong Baptist University highlights Hong Kong’s unique place in the global imagination over the decades.

Mashup at the Intersection of Deco and Hip-Hop

Archived at Cornell University, a collection of flyers promoting dance-inspiring DJ sets in the Bronx established the visual identity of a new cultural era.

Reading Lists

A parent and child near windmills at sunset

Black Midwestern Studies: A Reading List

This primer on Black Midwestern Studies examines the factors shaping communities of color in America’s “flyover country,” long mistaken as a place of normative whiteness.

Crowd taking photographs on mobile phones

Citizen Journalism: A Reading List

The ubiquity of smartphones has ushered in a new era for journalism—facilitating citizen journalism and changing the very nature of reporting.

Left to right: Lady Ottoline Morrell, Mrs. Aldous Huxley, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell, July 1915

The Bloomsbury Group: A Reading List

In 1905, a group of writers and painters gathered in a London home and began a conversation on politics, love, sex, and art that lasted decades.

Syllabus

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

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

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.