Portable Soup, Valuing Trees, and Building Utopia
Well-researched stories from Atlas Obscura, The New Inquiry, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
In The Debs Archive
The papers of American labor activist and socialist Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) offer a snapshot of early twentieth-century politics.
Staying Cool with Hand Fans
Fans are much more than convenient cooling devices. They make fashion statements, serve as status symbols, and silently spread political propaganda.
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.
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.
Pro-Epidemic Stigmatization
Prejudice and moralism interferes with public health, aiding and abetting the spread of the HIV and monkeypox viruses.
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.
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.
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.