Hand drawn illustration of african woman with pink hair

Going “Black to the Future”

How has Afrofuturism supported the imagining of other worlds in the face of the anthropogenic climate crisis?
A photograph from the Mars Perseverance rover, 2021

NASA’s Search for Life on Mars

It’s a rocky road for its rovers, a long slog for scientists—and back on Earth, a battle of the budget.

A Garden of Verses

As commonplace books evolved into anthologies, they developed reputations as canonical works, their editors curating tomes as vibrant as the loveliest bouquets.
Art Nouveau image of a person looking at a book of poetry, 1898 Velhagen Monatsheft

Make Your Own Poetry Anthology

Teaching students to make their own poetry anthologies in the form of a commonplace book gives them insight into the power, and problems, of curation.
Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, 1992

She’s All About That Bass

It’s not your imagination: a disproportionate number of women really do play bass guitar in rock bands.
The first color photograph of Earth from space, 1954

Cloudy Earth, Colorful Stingrays, and Black Country

Well-researched stories from Sequencer, Southern Fried Science, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Mount Okmok, Alaska

Beware the Volcanoes of Alaska (and Elsewhere)

The 43 BCE eruption of Alaska’s Okmok volcano created the (cold) climate context for the fall of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire.
The Reverend Brian Hession of the Dawn Trust and Bible Films Ltd film company starts a showing of a religious film at St Peter's Church, Piccadilly, London, 1946

Seeing the World Through Missionaries’ Eyes

One way Americans got a look into life in distant parts of the world in the 1930s and ’40s was through films made by Protestant missionary groups.
Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson

The Border Presidents and Civil Rights

Three US presidents from the South’s borders—Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson—worked against Southern politicians to support civil and voting rights.
Georgette Chen, Self Portrait, c. 1946

The Genius of Georgette Chen

Little known outside of Singapore and Malaysia, Georgette Chen was an iconic artist of the Nanyang Style.