What Skulls Told Us
The pseudoscience phrenology swept the popular imagination, and its practitioners made a mint preying on prejudices, gullibility, and misinformation.
Identity and Violence in Manipur, India
A history of political and economic mismanagement, paired with armed militancy based in ethnic identity, helps explain the protracted violence in the region.
Class and Superstition in Britain
Believing in ghosts wasn’t a class marker until the 1820s, when suddenly the educated classes tried to convince the masses that these apparitions were delusions.
Boom, Bust, and the “World’s Littlest Skyscraper”
The discovery of oil near Wichita Falls in 1911 not only brought money to the Texas town, it brought a swindler who promised the sky(scraper).
Sex and the Single Witch
On witch-hunting and the pursuit of sexual knowledge in early-modern England.
The Riches of Poverty Point
Earthworks built around 3,700 years ago in Louisiana centered an exchange system that stretched up the Mississippi and into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys.
The Radical Street Sellers of London
Many considered street vendors dangerous, not just for their general skirting of the law but because they comprised an outspoken political force.
Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings
How can we help students begin to make sense of the current and recurring violence in Israel and Gaza?