The Sharing Economy Was Dead on Arrival
Sharing economy firms like Lyft and Airbnb promised community, but the ideas they promoted as overturning the status quo are the status quo.
Civil Rights and New Deal America, Bruno Latour, and Bad Environmentalism
New books and scholarship from University of North Carolina, Harvard University Press, and University of Minnesota Press.
Gender Studies: Foundations and Key Concepts
Gender studies developed alongside and emerged out of Women’s Studies. This non-exhaustive list introduces readers to scholarship in the field.
Do We Have to Tell Them the House Is Haunted?
On the law and mythologies of haunting, from antiquity to today.
“Telling the Bees”
In nineteenth-century New England, it was held to be essential to whisper to beehives of a loved one’s death.
Trial by Combat? Trial by Cake!
The medieval tradition of deciding legal cases by appointing champions to fight to the death endured through 1817, unlike its tastier cousin.
How Ventriloquism Tricks the Brain
New research shows our brains place more weight on vision than hearing in identifying the source of a sound. But why?
Getting a Grip on Slavoj Žižek (with Slavoj Žižek)
The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek is famous for his provocative takes, but how should we understand his basic ideas?
Queering Jack Sheppard
An interview with author Jordy Rosenberg about his new novel, Confessions of the Fox.