Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes de Paris, 1925

Art Deco: 100 Years Since the Paris Exhibition That Revolutionized Modern Design

The landmark event displayed competing interpretations of “the modern” in design, art, and architecture.
Miss Songkran Surin contest in 1953

She’s the Very Model of a Modern Militant Woman

A gun-toting killer seems like an unlikely heroine for a nationalist classic novel, but that’s the story of Luang Wichit Wathakan’s Huang rak haew luk.
Negril, March 11, 1982

Mashup at the Intersection of Deco and Hip-Hop

Archived at Cornell University, a collection of flyers promoting dance-inspiring DJ sets in the Bronx established the visual identity of a new cultural era.
Ken Bundy from Bridgeport Ct. who served in Vietnam for 2 years touchs the Vietnam Memorial, November 11, 2003 in Washington, DC.

What Veterans’ Poems Can Teach Us About Healing on Memorial Day

A scholar and military veteran proposes that poems written by veterans that focus on honoring those who have died in service can help heal an ailing nation.
From the cover of From Rupture to Refuge: The Coordinates of Contemporary Refugee Narratives by Peter Sloane

Refugee Lit Stakes Its Worthy Claim

Peter Sloane’s new study examines the narratives put forth by asylum seekers striving to reclaim their stories from mainstream media and political discourse.
Portrait of Indian author and poet Rabindranath Tagore, circa 1935.

Tagore in Saigon: Culture, Contradictions, Champagne

Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to Vietnam in 1929 fanned the debate about the region’s potential future without the French.
Pausanias sacrifices a lamb to Greek and Roman pagan gods before fighting in the battle of Plataea

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Animal Sacrifice and the Greek Gods

The ritual of animal sacrifice in ancient Greece brought humans closer to the gods even as it defined their differences.
Virginia Woolf

A Hundred Years of Mrs. Dalloway

An exemplar of modernism, Virginia Woolf's revolutionary novel explored ideas—psychology, sexuality, imperialism—that roiled the twentieth century.
Left to right: Lady Ottoline Morrell, Mrs. Aldous Huxley, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell, July 1915

The Bloomsbury Group: A Reading List

In 1905, a group of writers and painters gathered in a London home and began a conversation on politics, love, sex, and art that lasted decades.
Lady Gaga speaks during the Spotify: Little Monster Press Conference in New York City, March 2025

Lady Gaga’s Return to Form

With Mayhem, Lady Gaga offers (again) utopia on the dance floor—but is there anyone left in the club to experience it?