The Doomsday Clock: Menacing Metaphor of the Nuclear Age
Pessimism is on the rise. Mercurial politicians, rising nationalism and isolationism, international bluster, a changing climate, mass protests, ...
Francis Picabia’s Chameleonic Style
The Francis Picabia retrospective at MoMA is wowing museumgoers again with his ever-shifting, always challenging art.
Why Does Menopause Exist?
What is the point of menopause? Evolutionarily speaking, why do female humans go through menopause and then live for many more decades?
The Saturday Evening Girls’ Guide to Helping Immigrants Succeed
The “Saturday Evening Girls" was a Progressive-Era club that afforded urban, Jewish and Italian girls and women a chance at coveted social mobility.
The High School of the Future (in 1917)
In 1917, a Progressive education reformer surveyed the high school landscape and looked to the future. His grand plans still haven’t come to fruition.
WWII and the First Ethical Hacker
Rene Carmille has been called the first ethical hacker for sabotaging the computerization of data about French Jews during World War II.
Suggested Readings: High Deductibles, Bad Marriages, and Mr. Darcy
Extra Credit: Our pick of stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
How Slaughterhouse-Five Made Us See the Dresden Bombing Differently
The bombing of Dresden, Germany, which began February 13, 1945, was once viewed as a historical footnote. Until Slaughterhouse-Five was published.
Edgar Allan Poe and the Power of a Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe knew that readers would add their visual image of the author to his work to create a personality that informed their reading.
The Mystery of the Mona Lisa
The mystery surrounding the 1911 theft and subsequent conspiracy theory catapulted the Mona Lisa into the popular imagination.