Unmaking a Priest: The Rite of Degradation
The defrocking ceremony was meant to humiliate a disgraced member of the clergy while discouraging laypeople from viewing him as a martyr.
The Meaning of Tanning
The popularity of tanning rose in the early twentieth century, when bronzed skin signaled a life of leisure, not labor.
Mao Zedong: Reader, Librarian, Revolutionary?
Before becoming leader of communist China, Mao was an ardent library patron and then worked as a library assistant.
In Search of Einstein’s Brain
After Albert Einstein’s death in 1955, a pathologist—searching for the secret of genius—removed, dissected, and ultimately stole the mathematician’s brain.
Object Lessons from the Modern Environmental Movement
This Earth Day, we're looking at the ominous slash beautiful material culture of the modern environmental movement.
The Irish Fasting Tradition
Particularly before the Second Vatican Council (a.k.a. Vatican II), fasting was part of the Catholic calendar. No one took it more seriously than the Irish.
Working Against the Clock: Time Colonialism and Lakota Resistance
Resisting Western conceptualizations of time and productivity, the Lakota peoples have maintained a task-oriented economy based on kinship and relationships.
An Earthquake Rattles Japan’s Independent Living Movement
The Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 highlighted the lack of financial and logistical support for people with disabilities to live independently.
How to Fight Like a Girl
Women have been punching each other in the face (during boxing matches) since the early 1700s.