Nizamiye Mosque in Midrand, Greater Johannesburg, South Africa

Recovering the Malay Manuscripts of South Africa

Descendants of those trafficked from Southeast Asia to South Africa by the Dutch, Cape Malay Muslims use surviving kietaabs to connect to their heritage.
The Death of Cleopatra by Edmonia Lewis

Cleopatra’s Nose

Edmonia Lewis, a sculptor of African and Native American descent, gave Cleopatra “white” European features in her 1876 representation of the Egyptian ruler.
Patrick White, ca. 1940

The Two Worlds of Patrick White

In writing and life, the Australian Nobel Laureate was ever preoccupied by the search for spiritual meaning and the fraught relationship between God and blundering humanity.
Miné Okubo

The Contested Legacy of Miné Okubo’s World War II Art

Okubo’s art showed the work of Japanese Americans forced to rehabilitate both the “enemy alien” on the home front and the enemy in the Pacific after the war.
Bay Area Renaissance Festival in Tampa Florida, 2011

Reasons for Re-Enacting at the Renaissance Faire

Why do we love donning period costumes and re-enacting our history through mock battles, pioneer villages, and Renaissance Faires?
A collage of photographs by Doris Ulmann

The “Vanishing Types” of Doris Ulmann

As her extensive body of work shows, Ulmann felt the loss of an imagined simpler time and tried to preserve it with her camera.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barnhill_from_above_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2230480.jpg

Jura: George Orwell’s Scottish Hideaway

Discover the austere island retreat where Big Brother was born.

JSTOR Daily: What I Learned

Go behind the scenes with our writers as we celebrate JSTOR Daily’s tenth anniversary!
Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ca 1864-70.

Becoming Beatrice

Dante adored her so much that he cast her as his guide in the Divine Comedy. But who was Beatrice Portinari?
The covers of three Chinese Science Fiction novels

What’s so Chinese About Science Fiction from China?

Commentators have latched onto science fiction to explain all manner of social phenomena in China, from unemployment and the economy to air pollution.