James Baldwin’s Complicated Relationship with Psychoanalysis
Baldwin criticized Freudian thinking yet drew on ideas like repression in his fiction and essays.
The Greek Tragedy Behind Suddenly Last Summer
A reinterpretation shows how Euripides's The Bacchae illuminates Tennessee Williams's play and its haunting final act.
The Cassette Tapes of the Great Migration
An archive of recorded interviews captures how ordinary people experienced one of the defining chapters of American history.
Reading the Maya with William S. Burroughs
Burroughs drew on the leading Maya scholarship of his day, much of which has since been overturned.
How Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema Imagined Ancient Rome
The Victorian painter drew on archaeology and ancient texts to create richly detailed scenes of love and excess.
Six Stories with First-Person Narrators
Distinctive voices and unforgettable perspectives, by Danielle Evans, Jamil Jan Kochai, Catherine Niu, Thomas Bernhard, Christine Schutt, and Michael Deagler.
The Hidden Grief of American Musicals
Musicology professor Jake Johnson argues that beneath the bright songs and happy endings of midcentury musicals lay the grief and anxieties of postwar America.
Celebrating the Fourth of July
Take a moment to contemplate the history and complexity of Independence Day, American Style.
Rediscovering The Jewish Gazette
A rare archive reveals how Ireland’s Jewish community navigated identity, culture, and rising antisemitism in the 1930s.
Dorm Life Forever? The Problem with Micro-Living
Research suggests compact housing may normalize economic insecurity rather than address the roots of the affordability crisis.