William Blake, Radical Abolitionist
Blake’s works offer an alternative to the failures of the Enlightenment, which couldn’t muster a consistent argument for abolition.
A Feminist Vision of the Musical
Chantal Akerman’s The Eighties proves that a musical set in a mall can be a significant feminist work.
Walt Whitman, America’s Phrenologist
The pseudoscience of phrenology included a notion of body as text that Whitman loved. But the craze of "bumpology" also had a darker side.
The Life of Forgotten Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon
She was known as the "female Byron." So why doesn't anyone read L.E.L. anymore?
Frank Capra’s Not-So-Sunny Vision of American Life
Capra's films are known for being upbeat and sometimes cheesy, but beneath the surface are rather dark stories of American corruption.
The Font Detectives
For typography experts like Thomas Phinney, the history of the printed word is crucial to weeding out fraud.
The Delicate Science-Art of the Blaschka Invertebrate Collection
The Cornell Collection of Blaschka Invertebrate Models includes hundreds of glass models of sea creatures, making it both a teaching tool and a metaphor.
The Posthumous Mystique of Thomas Chatterton
He died young of suicide and became the quintessence of the tormented poet. But his death may have been an accident, and his greatest work, forgeries.
These Gravity-Defying Sculptures Provoked Accusations of Demonic Possession
Demons and artists, it seems, pull from the same bag of tricks. They take ordinary matter and transform it into something more wondrous, more terrifying.