Interior of a restaurant kitchen

A House Divided—Between Front and Back

In many restaurants, front and back of house workers are divided by language and culture in ways that affect the careers of both groups.
A portrait of Frances Brooke beside the cover page for the book The History of Emily Montague

The First Canadian Novel

Often considered the first Canadian novel, The History of Emily Montague revealed its author’s true feelings about colonial Quebec.
Aerial shot of an autumn sunset over the Long Island Sound taken from Port Washington, NY

The Long and Winding Island

New York’s Long Island has long served as a backdrop for social and political conflicts between the newly arrived and the established residents.
Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht)

Weimar Operas and Visions of Utopia

Kurt Weill and his musical collaborators used utopian fantasies to explore the social and political conditions of a fading Weimar Republic.
The leg of this purple ochre sea star in Oregon is disintegrating, as it dies from sea star wasting syndrome. Photo by Elizabeth Cerny-Chipman, courtesy of Oregon State University.

The Long Quest to Uncover a Sea Star Killing Bacteria

Scientists say they’ve found the cause of a marine epidemic more than ten years after it started. What took so long?
A selection of pages from the The Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries Bibliotheca Fictiva collection

Enchanting Imposters

Johns Hopkins University’s Bibliotheca Fictiva Collection of Literary and Historical Forgery shows that humans have been creating fan fiction and fake news for millennia.
An old Lego character from the 80s on a green Lego surface.

LEGO: Brick by Ideological Brick

Toys, even ones marketed as tools for the imagination, are never value neutral.
Claudia Zenteno, activist and environmental defender of the Xochimilco wetlands, sails a raft to a chinampa on April 17, 2021 in Xochimilco, Mexico.

Old Wet Farms, New Pain Meds, and New Chemistry

Well-researched stories from Mongabay, Ars Technica, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Schröder-Schräder House

Building De Stijl Style

Piet Mondrian, co-founder of De Stijl, argued that the art movement wasn’t ready for architecture. Theo van Doesburg and others believed it was. Who was right?
pumpkins, squashes and gourds , dried a corn cob with kernels and dried beans were randomly spread on a wooden plate on a black background.

The Macronutrients of the Three Sisters System

If the intercropping of beans, squash, and corn produces smaller yields, why did the the Haudenosaunee prefer the Three Sisters system?