A film title lantern slide for Broncho Billy

Whatever Happened To The Male Movie Fan?

In the early days of the film industry, the fanzone was full of men and boys. Then the studios chased them all away.
A wheat field along the Pamir Highway, Tajikistan. A wheat blade is in focus in the foreground and the Pamir mountains in the back are blurred.

Building Cultures on Wheat

Wheat remains a central part of national identity in Tajikistan despite the mechanization of agriculture and decades of hostile Soviet policies.
A yellow and purple button with "Fight AIDS, Not People with AIDS" in yellow and purple font.

Pro-Epidemic Stigmatization

Prejudice and moralism interferes with public health, aiding and abetting the spread of the HIV and monkeypox viruses.
An image of The Sandman

In the Gutters of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman

Gaiman’s stories echo with narratives from the Western canon, taken from folktales and communal memory, displaced into something that feels fresh.
Comic books and collectibles are seen during WonderCon 2018 at Anaheim Convention Center on March 23, 2018 in Anaheim, California.

Teaching Comics: A Syllabus

So you want to teach The Sandman? Or William Blake? Or Art Spiegelman’s Maus? A guide to using comics and graphic novels in the classroom.

Death by Ice Cream

In the late nineteenth century, ice cream, a popular but poorly understood dessert, brought illness and death to America’s fairs and festivals.
A statue of a refugee family marks the crossroads of Netaji Nagar

Kolkata and Partition: Between Remembering and Forgetting

In West Bengal’s capital city, suppressing the painful history of the 1947 Partition allows for the celebration of moments of endurance and success.
A 1961 advertisement for Cutex lipstick

Lipstick’s Complex History

From antiquity to the present, the laws governing the wearing of lipstick have been shaped by gender, class, safety, and religion.
Bales of clothing are ready to be put on the sales floor at a Goodwill Outlet Center on July 27, 2022 in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Clothes Overload, Shared Emotions, and Procrastination

Well-researched stories from The Atlantic, Slate, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
An illustration from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 1831

The Hoax That Inspired Mary Shelley

In the hot summer of 1826, the British people—including science fiction author, Mary Shelley—embraced a fake and frozen Roger Dodsworth.