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Hunters in the Snow (Winter) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Climate Canvasses of the Little Ice Age

Low Country artists of the late Renaissance and Early Baroque eras captured the happiness and hardships of snowy winters—an ever rarer phenomenon now.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Himmelsbriefe: Heaven-Sent Chain Letters

For more than a thousand years, people have used letters allegedly written by Christ as both doctrinal evidence and magical charms.

Shared Collections

Maps, Power, and Identity

The Ancient East Asian Maps Collection at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology demonstrates the power held and discursive work done by mapmakers.

Time Travels

Dervla Murphy: The Godmother of Hitting the Road

Perhaps the greatest female travel writer of her generation, Murphy defied the narrative of the dutiful Irish daughter—and motherhood—to find freedom.

Plant of the Month

Quinoa: Rise of an Andean Superfood

Once considered a minor crop for Indigenous communities, quinoa’s journey to worldwide stardom was centuries in the making.

Most Recent

A cartoon illustration of an elderly woman communicating on the internet

Science & Technology

I Hope This Finds You Well, or, Dude, You Good?

Are formulaic hoping and wishing statements in correspondence evidence of magical thinking?

The Superman costume as worn by Christopher Reeve in Superman III

Shifting Identities

Still American?

A rumination on Superman, Black consciousness, and living the dream.

A woman proffers a jug of ale to a man in the street from her 'house of shame', in an allegorical 19th century woodcut.

Once Upon a Workplace

A Pint for the Alewives

Until the Plague decimated Europe and reconfigured society, brewing beer and selling it was chiefly the domain of the fairer sex.

Chinstrap penguins socialize on a vibrant blue iceberg in Antarctica

Napping Penguins, Moon Landings, and Angels with Guns

Well-researched stories from Nursing Clio, The Conversation, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Himmelsbriefe: Heaven-Sent Chain Letters

For more than a thousand years, people have used letters allegedly written by Christ as both doctrinal evidence and magical charms.

Shared Collections

Maps, Power, and Identity

The Ancient East Asian Maps Collection at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology demonstrates the power held and discursive work done by mapmakers.

Time Travels

Dervla Murphy: The Godmother of Hitting the Road

Perhaps the greatest female travel writer of her generation, Murphy defied the narrative of the dutiful Irish daughter—and motherhood—to find freedom.

Plant of the Month

Quinoa: Rise of an Andean Superfood

Once considered a minor crop for Indigenous communities, quinoa’s journey to worldwide stardom was centuries in the making.

Racist Humor: Exploratory Readings

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

Lingua Obscura

Black English Matters

People who criticize African American Vernacular English don't see that it shares grammatical structures with more "prestigious" languages.

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28550903

Politics & History

How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis

Recruited to the war effort thanks to their deft research skills and technological know-how, librarians used microforms to gather and share intelligence with Allied forces.

Long Reads

Politics & History

How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis

Recruited to the war effort thanks to their deft research skills and technological know-how, librarians used microforms to gather and share intelligence with Allied forces.

Politics & History

Scrub-a-Dub in a Medieval Tub

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Europeans in the Middle Ages took pains to keep themselves clean.

Arts & Culture

A Centennial Celebration of Spring and All

William Carlos Williams's hybrid work of poetry and prose both upended narrative conventions and delighted in the wondrous, unifying force of imagination.

A page from The Angolite that features a photograph of a prison guard holding a shotgun while watching prisoners work in a field.

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation

"Except as punishment for a crime," reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.

Editors' Picks

Education & Society

Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings

How can we help students begin to make sense of the current and recurring violence in Israel and Gaza?

Education & Society

Artificial Intelligence and Education: A Reading List

A bibliography to help educators prepare students and themselves for a future shaped by AI—with all its opportunities and drawbacks.

Education & Society

How to Teach with JSTOR Text Analyzer

JSTOR Text Analyzer provides students with an additional resource for finding scholarly material.

Politics & History

Ukraine, Russia, and the West: A Background Reading List

Research reports and scholarly articles on the history of the Ukraine-Russia conflicts of the past and possible paths for peace.

Education & Society

Digital Ethnography: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

The rise of the internet age and digital spaces has created a whole new world for ethnographic investigation.

Quirky History

The cover image from Ghost stories and phantom fancies, 1858

Class and Superstition in Britain

Believing in ghosts wasn’t a class marker until the 1820s, when suddenly the educated classes tried to convince the masses that these apparitions were delusions.

Shine On You Eagle Diamond

The year 1893 was a big one for Eagle, Wisconsin. Workers found a huge diamond on the Devereaux farm: sixteen carats, uncut, and now, all these years later, missing.

Charles Nelson of Hoxton in East London has been working as a 'knocker-up' for 25 years. He wakes up early morning workers such as doctors, market traders and drivers.

Who and What Was a Knocker-Upper?

Pour one out for the people paid to rouse the workers of industrial Britain.

Shared Collections on JSTOR

A spread from a yearbook featuring a collage of black and white photographs of students around campus and Portland

Keep Portland Yearbook Photos Weird

Across thousands of images, Portland State University's yearbooks captured both society's upheaval and the city's cultural metamorphosis.

Chicano Brothers Car Club: Photograph of David Aguilar with a 1950 Chevrolet

The San Diego Lowrider Archival Project

The lessons of "low and slow."

The Surprising Contents of an American POW’s Journal

There were 35 million prisoners of war held during World War II. One soldier's diary full of collages and drawings brings a human dimension to that number.

Syllabus

GAZA CITY, GAZA - JULY 24: A general view of the Beit Hanoun neighborhood on July 24, 2017 in Gaza City, Gaza. For the past ten years Gaza residents have lived with constant power shortages, in recent years these cuts have worsened, with supply of regular power limited to four hours a day. On June 11, 2017 Israel announced a new round of cuts at the request of the Palestinian authorities and the decision was seen as an attempt by President Mahmoud Abbas to pressure Gaza's Hamas leadership. Prior to the new cuts Gaza received 150 megawatts per day, far below it's requirements of 450 megawatts. In April, Gaza's sole power station which supplied 60 megawatts shut down, after running out of fuel, the three lines from Egypt, which provided 27 megawatts are rarely operational, leaving Gaza reliant on the 125 megawatts supplied by Israel's power plant. The new cuts now restrict electricity to three hours a day severely effecting hospital patients with chronic conditions and babies on life support. During blackout hours residents use private generators, solar panels and battery operated light sources to live. June 2017 also marked ten years since Israel began a land, sea and air blockade over Gaza. Under the blockade, movement of people and goods is restricted and exports and imports of raw materials have been banned. The restrictions have virtually cut off access for Gaza's two million residents to the outside world and unemployment rates have skyrocketed forcing many people into poverty and leaving approximately 80% of the population dependent on humanitarian aid. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings

How can we help students begin to make sense of the current and recurring violence in Israel and Gaza?

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

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

Teaching AI, AKA Artificial Intelligence

AI is everywhere. So naturally, we pulled together a syllabus of stories on the subject. Use these to inspire classroom discussion or educate your grandpa.

Reading Lists

The Care of the Dead: A Reading List

An interdisciplinary bibliography exploring the care of the dead and how our final choices are shaped by culture, religion, economics, technology, and war.