AKM Adam

A.K.M. Adam and Postmodern Biblical Studies

Welcome to Ask a Professor, our series that offers an insider’s view of life in academia. This month we interviewed A.K.M. Adam.
Steamed dumplings Dim Sum

The Cookbook That Brought Chinese Food to American Kitchens

The groundbreaking 1945 cookbook, How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, that introduced Chinese cooking to white American cooks.
Banana coffee

When Coffee Went Bananas

Abel French Spawn was not alone in marketing caffeine-free coffee substitutes like banana coffee to Mormons.
Martin Luther Cranach portrait

Why Martin Luther’s Body Type Mattered

Five hundred years after posting his ninety-five theses and launching the Reformation, Martin Luther remains a big man of history. Literally.
Bible pages

What Good Is Knowing the Bible?

Despite the high rates of religious adherence in the United States, fewer Americans are reading the Bible than at any point in history.
Boys fishing in a bayou, Schriever, LA, 1940

Why Our Work Affects How Kids Play

The way we think about the skills kids need—and even how they should play—is deeply tied to the characteristics we expect them to need as adults.
Presidential facial hair

The Meaning of a Mustache

To shave or not to shave? At the start of the twentieth century, a trend away from facial hair reflected dramatic social and economic shifts.
Leave It To Beaver family dad

When Ward Cleaver Caused Social Anxiety

In the early 1960s, an Illinois Children and Family Services worker tried to figure out how TV dads were impacting contemporary American fathers.
Antikythera Ephebe

The Antikythera Shipwreck Keeps Revealing Wonders

In the first century B.C.E., a Roman ship sank near the Greek Island of Antikythera. In 1900 some off-course sponge divers discovered the wreckage.