Walt Whitman as photographed by Brian Handy

Walt Whitman: (Happy Birthday) Song of Himself

Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman, you old bard and…politician. Clearly you like to sing to yourself, but let us join ...
Andrei Maximov via Flickr

The Real Meaning Behind Russia’s Eurovision Controversy

The annual Eurovision contest often serves as a stage on which political tensions play out.
Snøhetta expansion of the new SFMOMA, 2016; photo © Henrik Kam, courtesy SFMOMA

SFMOMA: The Brave New World of Art Museums

SFMOMA celebrated its 75th anniversary with a huge architectural expansion, only rivaled by its technological innovations.
Paul Gauguin, Nafea Faa Ipoipo? (When Will You Marry? ) 1892, oil on canvas, 101 x 77 cm

The Real Reason Fine Art Costs So Much

To outsiders, art auctions can seem like a parody of bizarre spending by wealthy people. The origins of ultra-expensive art lies in the nineteenth-century.
Commencement vocab visualization

The Delightful Language of Commencement

Commencement speeches have inspired, motivated and captivated many. Just what makes the words found in them so wonderful and life-affirming? 
Geek Love

Geek Love: Our Modern Monster Story

The writer Katherine Dunn died last week at age 70. Anyone who ever felt like an outsider found a friend in her 1989 novel Geek Love.
Covers of books by Virginia Woolf

“What a lark! What a plunge!”: Celebrating Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Dalloway was published on May 14, 1925. We look at the book 90+ years on.
YINKA SHONIBARE MBE, Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), 2004 High Definition Digital Video 32 minute loop © Yinka Shonibare. Courtesy James Cohan, New York.

Yinka Shonibare: Postcolonial Film and Fabrication

Explore Yinka Shonibare’s first film featuring dramatic postcolonial performances that highlight the slipperiness of identity-making and history-telling.
College Hall opened in 1875 as the main building of Smith College.

Daniel Aaron: Americanist

Daniel Aaron, a forerunner in the field of American Studies, has passed away at 103.
Sigrid Undset

The Best Book You’ve Never Read

The best book you've never read may just be 'Kristin Lavransdatter,' which won its author Sigrid Undset the Nobel Prize in 1928.