Caught in Partition’s Violent Fray
Published seventy-five year ago, Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar explores the devastation suffered by the women of India and Pakistan after political rupture.
Tod Browning’s Freaks
Freaks asked audiences to think about the exploitative display of human difference while also demonstrating that the sideshow was a locus of community.
Documenting a Disappearing Architecture
The Heinz Gaube Lebanese Architectural Photographs Collection, supported by an innovative mapping project, details threatened buildings across Lebanon.
The Lessons of Due Process in Julius Caesar
Shakespeare's tragedy offers a telling parable about the administration of justice—and rife mishandling thereof—in our day.
The First Canadian Novel
Often considered the first Canadian novel, The History of Emily Montague revealed its author’s true feelings about colonial Quebec.
The Long and Winding Island
New York’s Long Island has long served as a backdrop for social and political conflicts between the newly arrived and the established residents.
Weimar Operas and Visions of Utopia
Kurt Weill and his musical collaborators used utopian fantasies to explore the social and political conditions of a fading Weimar Republic.
Enchanting Imposters
Johns Hopkins University’s Bibliotheca Fictiva Collection of Literary and Historical Forgery shows that humans have been creating fan fiction and fake news for millennia.
LEGO: Brick by Ideological Brick
Toys, even ones marketed as tools for the imagination, are never value neutral.
Building De Stijl Style
Piet Mondrian, co-founder of De Stijl, argued that the art movement wasn’t ready for architecture. Theo van Doesburg and others believed it was. Who was right?