Wayne Thiebaud’s Sweet Take on American Art

The beloved American painter rejected attempts to categorize his work as a Pop Art as he experimented with texture, light, and nostalgia.
Man proposing to woman on one knee, presenting her with a bouquet of roses, separated by black cubes

Love Is Blind … but Are Your Hormones?

Do women’s attraction to certain faces really change across the menstrual cycle? A long-running theory meets modern data.
Dorothy Parker, ca. 1935

Dorothy Parker: Sharp-Witted Writer, Bitter Professor

Dorothy Parker’s year as a visiting professor shows how a celebrated literary voice struggled to adapt to the realities of academic teaching.

H. H. Richardson and the Making of an American Romanesque

Historical photographs help trace the emergence of Richardsonian Romanesque and its lasting influence on American architecture.
The cover of The Truffle Eye by Vaan Nguyen

The Poet Who Writes About Vietnam in Hebrew

Vaan Nguyen’s poetry examines exile and memory through the lens of her family’s journey from Vietnam to Israel.
A bridge spanning a river collapses beneath the passage of a train, in a scene from the United Artists film 'The General', directed by and starring Buster Keaton, 1927

A History of Fakery on Film

Concerns about AI-made images have deep roots in the earliest years of filmmaking.
An illustration from the cover of Ted Hughes's 1968 novel The Iron Man

The Book That Became The Iron Giant

Before it was a cult classic, the Warner Bros. film began as a 1968 children’s novel by Ted Hughes, though the book and movie tell notably different tales.
Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine performs at the 2019 Governors Ball Festival at Randall's Island on June 01, 2019 in New York City.

The Pagan Heart of Florence + The Machine

Welch’s new album continues the band's long-running dialogue with magic, myth, and modern witchcraft.
Japanese settlers harvesting millet in Northern Manchuria

When the Dust Settles in Colonial Manchurian Writing

Takagi Kyōzō makes heavy use of natural imagery to decry the miserable status of the settler colonist population in Japanese-occupied Manchuria.
An illustration from Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies, 1405

Medieval Friendships: No Girls Allowed

Medieval European elites inherited the classical concept of friendship as something possible only for men. Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe beg to differ.