The cover of Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong

Monique Truong and the New Southern Gothic

Truong’s second novel, Bitter in the Mouth, expands the region and the meaning of “the South” in contemporary literature.
Well-dressed spy illustration.

Spies, Fashion, and Pet Cemeteries

Well-researched stories from Aeon, Harvard Public Health, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Image from a poster for safe sex awareness

Reading for LGBTQ+ History Month

October is LGBTQ+ History Month, so the JSTOR Daily editors have rounded up a few of our favorite stories to mark the occasion.
Two poachers with a sack. At their feet their lurcher dogs and the corpses of several hares.

Frederick Gowing, King of Poachers

The cultural construction of poaching meant Gowing’s trespasses were understood differently than other kinds of theft in an industrializing Britain.
Battleship NEW YORK at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard dry dock, Bremerton, Washington, ca. 1914

Postcolonial Pacific: The Story of Philippine Seattle

The growth of Seattle in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is inseparable from the arrival of laborers from the US-colonized Philippines.
Saint Clare of Montefalco

A Religious Studies Roundup

Stories from JSTOR Daily about religious traditions around the world and how they’ve shaped our politics, pleasures, and self-perceptions.
Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson’s Speech on the Indian Removal Act: Annotated

In December 1830, two months after the passage of the Indian Removal Act, President Andrew Jackson used his annual Congressional message to celebrate the policy.
Picking lemons in a grove on the Conca d'Oro (Golden Shell), outside Palermo, Sicily, ca. 1900-1910

The Lemon Gang: Citrus and the Rise of the Mafia

Poverty, disparities in wealth, widespread brigandage, and the dissolution of the feudal system enabled the predatory practices of Sicily’s citrus mafia.
Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, cuoco secreto di Papa Pio V

The Wild West of Papal Conclaves

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the death of a pope led to all sorts of chaos, from the destruction of art to armed violence in the streets.
The Suffragette Down with the Tom Cats

A Purrrrfect Political Storm

Crazy cat ladies have come to dominate this election season. It’s hardly the first time.