A woman picking vegetables

How the Black Labor Movement Envisioned Liberty

To Reconstruction-era Black republicans, the key to preserving the country’s character was stopping the rise of a wage economy.
An image representing negentropy

Could Negentropy Help Your Life Run Smoother?

In physics, entropy is the process of a system losing energy and dissolving into chaos. This applies to social systems in everyday life, too.
From left to right: Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, Emily Dickinson, and Beah Richards

Celebrating National Poetry Month

Our best stories about poetry and poems offer free links to poems from contemporary and classic American poets.
Act 3 Scene 2 of "As You Like It"

Are We Getting Shakespeare’s Rhythms All Wrong?

Trippingly on the tongue? Yeah, right.
Statue of Benkos Biohó in San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia

Black Conquistadors and Black Maroons

Some formerly enslaved Blacks and freedmen accompanied the Spanish invaders; others formed their own communities.
The front page of the exhibition catalog for "Womanhouse" (January 30 – February 28, 1972), feminist art exhibition organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Feminist Art Program.

The Origins of the Feminist Art Movement

Before the Guerrilla Girls, Women Artists in Revolution pressured institutions to include women artists, inspiring similar groups around the U.S.
Donald Trump's face in the shape of the Twitter logo

Is There a First Amendment Right to Tweet?

How social media companies have imported relatively restrictive European free speech norms to the US.
A dead tree in a forest

What Happens to a Tree When It Dies?

Decomposing trees on the forest floor become "dead wood"—a part of ecosystems that researchers are only beginning to understand.
Rosie the Riveter

Does It Matter Who the Real Rosie the Riveter Was?

Many women have claimed to be the model behind the iconic poster.
Common octopus (Octopus vulgaris).

Octopus Dreams, Responsible Cussing, and the Filibuster

Well-researched stories from NPR, Atlas Obscura, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.