How to Be a Modern Woman in 1930s Shanghai
The popular Chinese magazine Linglong encouraged women to embrace new freedoms while warning them against abandoning traditional values.
The Rise and Fall of Shanghai’s “Sing-Song Girls”
How did celebrated entertainers become associated with a profession increasingly defined by exploitation?
The Women Breaking the Rules of Balinese Dance
Middle-aged performers are taking on roles once reserved for men, challenging expectations about age and gender in Bali.
Inventing Pad Thai
A government campaign transformed a Chinese-inspired noodle dish into a symbol of Thailand's national identity.
The Women Who Sold Books Door to Door
Three nineteenth-century memoirs reveal the risks and rewards of life on the road as a traveling bookseller.
Life Inside Icelandic Turf Houses
Grass roofs may look enchanting today, but living beneath them was another story.
The Ghost Roads of Ireland’s Great Famine
Starving families were forced to earn aid by carving roads through rock, fields, and mountainsides.
“Brewed with Blood”: The Coors Beercott of the 1970s
An unusual coalition transformed a labor dispute into one of the longest-running consumer protests in US history.
The Catholic Turn of Oscar Wilde’s Lover
Lord Alfred Douglas’s journey from Hellenism to Catholic mysticism shows how queer Victorians sought meaning and redemption through religion.
The Oral Histories of the AIDS Crisis
The voices of artists and activists illuminate the human experience behind the AIDS epidemic.