Sneaky Racism in a Ghost Story
Guy de Maupassant’s spooky story "The Horla" captured French anxieties about race, foreigners, and contagious diseases.
Sylvia Plath’s Fascination with Bees
The social organization of the apiary gave Sylvia Plath a tool for examining her aesthetic self, even as her personal world slipped into disarray.
Should Readers Trust “Inaccuracy” in Memoirs about Genocide?
To what extent do errors undermine life writing? The question is an urgent one when that writing is testimony to the genocidal actions of the Khmer Rouge.
“Tell Me about a Complicated Man”: A Homer Reading List
The amount of scholarship on Homer and his works can be daunting. We've created this introductory reading list to help guide your explorations.
Kahlil Gibran: Godfather of the “New Age”
Published in 1923, The Prophet became a perpetual best-seller, birthed a genre, and marked the poet as retrograde, sentimental, and florid.
“The Poet Is a Man Who Feigns”
Portuguese modernist Fernando Pessoa channeled a grand, glorious chorus of writers—heteronyms, he called them—robust inventions of his unique imagination.
The Incredible Versatility of Adrienne Rich
Rich challenged the language of the past in poetry and prose while not quite embracing a fully inclusive future.
From the Black Queer South to the World
Across its twelve-year lifespan, Atlanta-based Venus magazine brought southern voices to the larger Black queer print media network.
The Blu’s Hanging Controversy
Some have argued that the 1997 novel Blu's Hanging perpetuates East Asian racism against Filipinos while undermining criticism through violent sexuality.
The Spy Who Shared My Foyer
Luminaries from Agatha Christie to Walter Gropius gravitated to London’s “Lawn Road Flats.” So too did a far less conspicuous cohort: assets for the USSR.