5 (Free!) Works of Flash Fiction
Flash fiction by Grace Paley, Helen Phillips, Clemens Setz, Vanessa Gebbie, and Josefine Klougart, available for free PDF download.
Old English Has a Serious Image Problem
Although studying the language known as “Anglo-Saxon” helped women advance in the academy, the subject is fraught with racist associations.
Friend or Faux? The Linguistic Trickery of False Friends
"False friends" appear or sound like words in their own language, but have different meanings in others. They give us insight into how language changes.
Why William Randolph Hearst Hated Citizen Kane
Most Americans know about William Randolph Hearst through his fictional alter-ego, the protagonist of the film Citizen Kane. Was it an accurate portrait?
Remembering the LA Uprisings Through Theater
Just one year after the Rodney King verdict and subsequent LA riots, Anna Deveare Smith opened her one-woman show “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992."
Elizabeth Strout
How Elizabeth Strout went from writing in car during her baby's naptime to becoming the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author she is today.
A Very JSTOR Daily Mixtape: Volume 2
A JSTOR playlist featuring musicians who were also writers or scholars with content on JSTOR: including Leonard Cohen, Neko Case, Vijay Iyer, and Brian Eno.
How to Publicly Apologize
Why, after al the political, corporate, and celebrity apologies we've heard in the last generation, is it still so hard to say, "I'm sorry"?
Noblesse Oblige in American Politics
What responsibility does the very wealthy have to the rest of the population? United States governor Winthrop Rockefeller provides a historical case study.
Walt Disney, Urban Utopian
The Main Street of Disneyland and Disney World were Walt Disney's first attempts at creating the utopian city he could never quite manage.