Life in the Iron Mills as Fiction of the “Close-Outsider Witness”
Rebecca Harding Davis had no firsthand experience of iron mills. Neither does her nameless narrator.
Toni Morrison’s Operatic Life
Toni Morrison was renowned for the musicality of her prose, so writing lyrics for classical music wasn't a huge stretch.
The Linguistic Evolution of Taylor Swift
If Taylor Swift shifts her accent in her transition from country to pop, does she lose the personal authenticity important to country music?
How Americans Were Taught to Understand Israel
Leon Uris's bestselling book Exodus portrayed the founding of the state of Israel in terms many Americans could relate to.
Resistance through Silence in Camus’s The Plague
"On this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences."
Choosing Love over Eugenics
Some writers see contagion as a metaphor for community—proof that we exist within an interdependent network and not as autonomous disconnected islands.
How to Meme What You Say
The linguistic theories behind what we're trying to say when we adapt and share internet memes.
Meet Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective
Fictional detectives usually reflect conservative values. But the first "lady detective" story written by a woman broke boundaries.
The Sorry State of Apologies
"Sorry" can be more than a mere word when it has real-world consequences.
Julie Enszer: “We Couldn’t Get Them Printed,” So We Learned to Print Them Ourselves
The editor of the lesbian feminist magazine Sinister Wisdom talked to us about lesbian print culture, feminist collectives, and revolution.