18th-Century Lovers Exchanged Portraits of Their Eyes
The miniature paintings celebrated and commemorated love at a time when public expressions of affection were uncouth.
Boccaccio’s Medicine
In the Decameron of Boccaccio, friends tell one another stories of love to while away the hours of quarantine.
How Emily Dickinson Wrestled with Darwinism
The current vogue for the Amherst poet needs to give credit to the way she readily examined her childhood ideas about fixed and immutable truth.
How Film Noir Tried to Scare Women out of Working
In the period immediately following World War II, the femme fatale embodied a host of male anxieties about gender roles.
Doris Day Changed Us Forever
What did women coming of age in the 1950s think of Doris Day in Calamity Jane? Does her filmography have the same meaning now?
When Language Goes Viral
How do innocuous words become insidious in the face of a public health emergency?
How the Rothko Chapel Creates Spiritual Space
Fourteen colossal black paintings by the modern artist Mark Rothko are installed in an octagonal room in Texas. Visitors say the chapel brings them peace.
How Do We Know That Epic Poems Were Recited from Memory?
Scholars once doubted that pre-literate peoples could ever have composed and recited poems as long as the Odyssey. Milman Parry changed that.
The Sinatra Movie Some Blamed for JFK’s Death
In the 1950s, Frank Sinatra starred in Suddenly, a movie that happens to depict a plot against the President.
AITA for Being Obsessed with Ethics in Pop Culture?
Reddit's popular AITA forum lets readers post and weigh in on everyday ethical questions. But it isn't the first public venue for those discussions.