Photographs of Natasha Trethewey, Debora Kuan, Sam Sax, Louise Glück, Rebecca Lehmann, and Alex Dimitrov against a green background

10 Contemporary Pastoral Poems

Poems that reflect and reinterpret the pastoral tradition, by Louise Glück, Alex Dimitrov, Rebecca Lehmann, Sam Sax, Natasha Trethewey, and more.
Rebecca Lehmann

Rebecca Lehmann on Breaking the Rules of Poetry

An interview with writer and poet Rebecca Lehmann, who finds splendid things can follow when she stretches the rules of craft.
Stained Glass Window in the Nazareth Synagogue in Paris

Introduction to Jewish Studies: A Reading List

The broad, ever-expanding field of Jewish Studies is united by texts, events, and figures that engage an established canon of ideas across disciplines.
Black and white photograph of Augusta Baker seated at a desk with papers spread out before her.

The Legendary Children’s Librarian of Harlem

Raised in a family of storytellers, Augusta Baker continued that tradition, imparting a love of books to readers of all ages.
An illustration from Mansfield Park depicting Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford rehearsing Lovers' Vows

The Scandalous Play in Mansfield Park

Jane Austen uses Elizabeth Inchbald’s Lovers’ Vows to explore the social boundaries, both public and private, of Regency England.
Books of imagination. Surreal art. fantasy painting. Books flying in the clouds.

Speculative Fiction: Beyond a Novel’s Entertainment Value

The classroom is a place to equip students to better understand the world as it was and is. Speculative fiction can help.
Cute tiny people reading different books, giant textbooks. Concept of book world, readers at library, literature lovers or fans. Colorful vector illustration in flat cartoon style

Speculative Fiction: A Reading List

Speculative fiction, from Afrofuturism to Star Wars, offers students tools and methods for analyzing social movements, power structures, and utopian thinking.
Scene of Three Witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth by George Cattermole, 1840

King James I and the Macbeth Witches

The ever-pragmatic Shakespeare added witches to the Scottish play to please his new patron, King James I of England.
The only surviving image that may depict Anne Hathaway, made by Sir Nathaniel Curzon in 1708.

Anne Shakespeare: Toward a Biography

Let’s check in with Anne Shakespeare, née Hathaway, about whom so little is known.
Clockwise: Agha Shahid Ali, Elizabeth Bishop, William Logan, Paisley Rekdal, Charles Fort, Tim Seibles.

10 Villanelles by Modern and Contemporary Poets

Read these recursive, nineteen-line poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Paisley Rekdal, William Logan, Agha Shahid Ali, and more.