Livia Gershon is a freelance writer in Nashua, New Hampshire. Her writing has appeared in publications including Salon, Aeon Magazine and the Good Men Project. Contact her on Twitter @liviagershon.
In classic British detective stories, villains might be atavistic monsters, foreign menaces, or conniving professionals—all tied to aristocrats’ anxieties.
In the years between the world wars, the League of Nations attempted to change how history was taught to emphasize commonalities across national lines.
In The Gambia, adherents of the Tablighi Jama‘at movement believe in the segregation of men and women, which often affects gender roles in unexpected ways.
Black American voluntary migrants to Liberia were eager to embrace their African roots, but their vision for the country was very much an American one.
In his retellings of ancient myths, Bacon called for research to extend human lifespans, but only if those longer lives were spent in the pursuit of knowledge.
Gaining strength in the early 2000s, the New Atheism movement was fueled by a fear of Christian fundamentalism and a belief that secularism was under attack.
The 1974 Rumble in the Jungle was freighted with symbolism regarding American racial politics and the pan-African struggle in the context of the Cold War.
The belief that animals cross the “Rainbow Bridge” to an afterlife is relatively new and not part of any formal theology, yet many Americans embrace it.
Leading up to a 2004 debate about same-sex marriage, conservatives shifted their focus away from moral issues and toward arguments about children’s welfare.
For some young, working-class Japanese men and women, Jamaican reggae clubs offer an escape from cultural norms and a way to gain currency in the music world.
Although few women were employed as governesses in Victorian Britain, their potential for social and class transgression left Britons awash with worry.
Gay rights activist Lige Clarke embraced non-monogamy, LSD, and unconventional spirituality, tying many of his radical ideas to his upbringing in Kentucky.
Chinese calligraphy is a personal art that draws on Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism as well as spiritual practices that date to the second century CE.
In the Meiji period, geisha embraced the nation’s modernizing project, helping to improve education for women and promoting a western-style domestic ideal.
Abraham Lincoln was no Marxist, but his ideas about the relationship of labor and capital mirrored Marx’s in some ways—albeit with a rural American flavor.
Between the 1960s and 1980s, state governments created lotteries to supplant illegal gambling operations that brought revenue to marginalized communities.
Italian immigrants had no qualms about working and living alongside Black Americans, which made them targets for violence by white vigilantes in Louisiana.
