Woman in multicolored dress.

Microbes Might Paint Your Next Party Dress

The official “fashion month,” September has concluded its parade of gorgeous outfits. These contain harmful dyes, though. Can microbes make safer colors?
Kadish book

Summoning 17th-Century Scholars: Researching The Weight of Ink

Author Rachel Kadish tells us about how she used JSTOR to research her fascinating, complex new novel, The Weight of Ink.
Janet Jackson in concert

The Lasting Power of Janet Jackson’s “Got ‘Til It’s Gone”

Twenty years ago, Janet Jackson released her single "Got ‘Til it’s Gone." Today, we celebrate the layered artistry that led to the video's timeless appeal.
High School Frederick Wiseman

Frederick Wiseman’s Reality Fictions

Frederick Wiseman's 42nd documentary in 50 years of film-making has just been released. What's he making movies about, anyway?
Kazuo Ishiguro

An Artist of the Floating World: Two Interviews with Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro, an English novelist, won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature. His work deals with topics like national identity, memory, and trauma.
Choctaw woman

How 19th Century Women Were Taught to Think About Native Americans

In nineteenth-century American women's magazines, Native American women were depicted as attractive, desirable, and pious.
Old movie theater

Weirdly Enough, Movies about TV Prepared America for TV

Ironically, it was movies that helped accustom American viewers to television in the first place, writes Richard Koszarski.
Blue Black gallery view

Glenn Ligon’s “Blue Black” Exhibits the History of Race in America

Artist Glenn Ligon grounds his work in American history, addressing the inextricable link between history of slavery and the black experience in the U.S.
Harpsichord

Why We Will Never Hear What Mozart Heard

Modern pianos are the product of a 600-year evolution—from Hermann Poll's 1397 clavicembalum, to clavichords, harpsichords, and the modern grand piano.
Victoria wedding

A Natural History of the Wedding Dress

The history of the wedding dress is shorter than the history of weddings, and even shorter still than the history of marriage.