Judi Bari speaks at an Earth First! forest rally in 1990 before she was bombed on the eve of Redwood Summer.

How Judi Bari Tried to Unite Loggers and Environmentalists

The radical environmentalist had a background in labor organizing and wanted to end the misogyny of the movement and the logging industry alike.
"Spirit" photograph, supposedly taken during a seance, actually a double exposure or composite of superimposed cut-outs, showing woman with portraits of men and women around her head

How Spirit Photography Made Heaven Literal

Are the departed watching over us, and if so, what are they wearing? Victorian spiritualists believed that ghosts could be captured on film.
J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.

The Black Mathematician Who Resisted Nuclear War

J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. worked on the Manhattan Project and signed a petition that the bomb not be used before Japan was offered terms of surrender.
Karneval in Rom by Johannes Lingelbach

Is It Really Carnival if You’re Not Drunk?

Carnival is known for overturning the rules of society for a short time. But strangely, many scholars don't discuss what a big role alcohol plays in it.
A man looking at Reddit on a laptop

AITA for Being Obsessed with Ethics in Pop Culture?

Reddit's popular AITA forum lets readers post and weigh in on everyday ethical questions. But it isn't the first public venue for those discussions.
1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords

On the 100th Anniversary of the Negro Leagues, a Look Back at What Was Lost

A century ago, teams from eight cities formally created the Negro National League. Three decades of stellar play followed.
Termites

Margaret S. Collins, Pioneering Black Entomologist

She was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in entomology as well as an activist for freedom in the Civil Rights Movement.
Chattering teeth, human hands gesturing, and people working

Dating Apps Are Intensifying Online Partisanship

Some social scientists argue that dating and mating patterns may be the real drivers of polarization.
A typewriter on a yellow background

Autobiography, Chemical Love, and Virtuous Chocolate

Well-researched stories from FiveThirtyEight, Aeon, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Vicente Guerrero

Black Mexico and the War of Independence

The president of Mexico who finally issued the decree ending slavery was of African descent himself.