Chess, Unlike War, is a Game of Perfect Information
The late poet Charles Simic was a chess prodigy who used the queen and her court to conjure a hellscape that invoked a childhood in war-time Belgrade.
Musicians Fought the Law, and the Law Won—Sometimes
De La Soul are known for the effect their use of samples had on their music sales and availability on streaming sites. They’re finally streaming. Why now?
Country Roads and City Scenes in Japanese Woodblock Prints
Explore two centuries of printmaking—from Hokusai and Hiroshige through Hiratsuka—in this online collection shared by Boston College.
Dummy Boards: the Fun Figures of the 1600s
These life-sized painted figures, popular in Europe and colonial America in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, were designed to amuse and confuse.
Ousmane Sembène: Feminism in African Francophone Cinema
Known as “the grandfather of African cinema,” Sembène created powerful female characters who challenged Western notions of gender and sexuality.
Taking Liberties With Biblical Stories
In the Christian New Testament, Saint John the Baptist and Salome never meet. Why, then, does she appear at the bars of his cell in Guercino’s moody painting?
How to Interpret the Meaning of an Image
This week, we practice using our skills of visual analysis and learn how to "read" deliberately constructed images.
Virginia Woolf’s Only Play
Based on Woolf's own family, Freshwater was a tongue-in-cheek comedy full of inside jokes, written to entertain members of the Bloomsbury Group.
Girls Gone Greek
The most influential character on Showtime’s Yellowjackets is the one who goes unnamed: Dionysus.
Lost in Translation: Ezra Pound’s Imagism and the Angel Island Poets
As Pound was making a splash with “translations” of Chinese poetry, immigrants from China were etching poems of despair into the walls of a detention facility.