The Poem That Inspired Radical Black Women to Organize
Beah Richards is best known as an actor, but in 1951 she wrote a sweeping poem that influenced the Civil Rights Movement.
How Trumbull Park Exposed the Brutal Legacy of Segregation
Frank London Brown’s 1959 novel, which presents a powerful story of white supremacist hatred, has been selected for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
The Creepy Backstory to Horatio Alger’s Bootstrap Capitalism
In a famous essay, a scholar uncovered difficult truths about Alger, whose name has been associated with the "rags to riches" myth.
The Ethical Life of Euphemisms
Euphemisms can hide facts that need to be confronted. How do they work from a linguist's point of view?
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.