stack of books in home interior

Why You Love the Smell of Old Books

Scent carries significant psychological meaning. A recent paper proposed that scent be included in a proposed intangible heritage list recognized by UNESCO.
Morehouse College campus

Can College Cure Racism?

New reading requirements at Harvard have added fuel to an ongoing debate about diversity in curricula. At HBCUs these fights had a different dimension.
Empty hospital corridor with closed doors at the end

The Ongoing Practice of Female Genital Mutilation

Female genital mutilation seems totally foreign to the U.S., but versions of the long-outlawed surgery have seen a recent resurgence.
Heads quarters

The Statistics of Coin Tosses for Theater Geeks

At the beginning of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a coin toss lands as heads 92 times in a row, the odds of which are a mere 1 in 5 octillion.
Central Park Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted: The Complicated Man Behind Central Park & The Nation

Struck by something naturally beautiful in an American city? Odds are that you have stumbled across the work of Frederick Law Olmsted.
Coptic Christians Egypt

Why Egypt’s Coptic Christians Face Rising Sectarianism

Egypt’s Coptic Christians supported President Abdelfattah al-Sisi's overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why do they still face discrimination?
Waco compound in flames

How Religious Literacy Might Have Changed the Waco Tragedy

Religious scholars argue that the Waco raid was not justified and that with more understanding of theology, the loss of life could have been avoided.
Stanley Fish

Stanley Fish’s Academic Clickbait

The “renegade” scholar Stanley Fish is really a bit dramatic.
Photograph: revelers in stylish Easter hats at the New York City Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival, 2015

Source: https://flic.kr/p/r2tGNN

The Religious Roots of the Easter Parade

The revival of Easter as a festival-type holiday coincided with a rise in Catholic immigration and relaxing religious standards in the 1880's.
Soldier eating matzo, 1940s

Matzo and Oreos: Keeping Kosher in America

The koshering of America's food industry has mostly gone unnoticed. Yet most people who specifically buy kosher foods are not Jewish.