This list of my favorite JSTOR Daily stories is far too long. We have published so many amazing stories over the ten years since we launched that I find it exceedingly difficult to choose which to highlight. Let us all, then, share our favorites on social media, for by honoring the past, we seed (without ceding) the future.
How We Escape It: An Essay
September 6, 2017
Escape is an ancient word, escapism, a modern one, and the designation of a genre—“escape literature”—dates to the 1930s.
Will Art Save Our Descendants from Radioactive Waste?
May 13, 2015
What if the great threat to human life isn't a bomb dropping down from above but radioactive waste creeping up from below? Will art come to our rescue then?
Can Intellectual Humility Save Us from Ourselves?
January 24, 2024
Intellectual humility is defined as a willingness to admit you’re wrong. It could be just the idea for our self-righteous times.
Thanksgiving Is a Feast of Things Forgotten
November 22, 2016
Thanksgiving is a feast so complex and semiotically dense that things are very often forgotten and rarely go according to plan.
The Unsung Heroine of Lichenology
September 26, 2020
Elke Mackenzie’s moments of self-citation illuminate the hopes of someone who, against ease and tradition, did not wish to separate her identity from her research.
A Belief in Ghosts: Poetry and the Shared Imagination
October 4, 2016
An essay from poet Dorothea Lasky on poetry, ghosts, and the shared imagination.
The First Famous Football Team Behind Bars
February 8, 2023
Sing Sing's football team, The Black Sheep, ascended to fame even though its players were incarcerated. One player was so good, he signed with the Eagles.
The Sorry State of Apologies
July 1, 2020
"Sorry" can be more than a mere word when it has real-world consequences.
“Thoughts and Prayers” in Greek Tragedy
December 4, 2017
With national tragedies now as frequent and predictable as sunrises, no phrase has lost consolatory power more swiftly than “thoughts and prayers.”
John B. Cade’s Project to Document the Stories of the Formerly Enslaved
January 26, 2022
A recently digitized slave narrative collection consists of original manuscripts compiled by John Brother Cade and his students at Southern University.
What Makes Work Meaningful? Ask a Zookeeper
June 24, 2015
In interviews with zookeepers, researchers found that good feelings about work ran deeper than a standard survey metric like job satisfaction could capture.
Why Companies Are So Interested in Your Myers-Briggs Type
September 7, 2022
If you’ve looked for a job recently, you’ve probably encountered the personality test. You may also have wondered if it was backed by scientific research.
Adventures in Poetry
April 20, 2022
Published in the East Village from 1968 to 1975, Adventures in Poetry features poems by New York School poets Anne Waldman, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, Bernadette Mayer, and more.
Sorry, but Jane Eyre Isn’t the Romance You Want It to Be
February 27, 2019
Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe.
What Is Punctuation For?
January 29, 2024
Between the medieval and modern world, the marks used to make writing more legible changed from “pointing” to punctuation.
America’s Workforce Runs on Uppers
June 1, 2016
Uppers like Benzedrine and cocaine provided a willing workforce for our capitalist economy. Now, Americans are turning to ADHD medications.
Stuck in the Midden with You
January 5, 2020
A midden is, among other things, a refuse site outside an octopus' home. (Release the Køkkenmødding!)
Goth Won’t Die, but It Wants a Funeral Anyway
January 26, 2020
Like its celebrated vampires, the Goth subculture has roots in a fascination with death and cultural transgression.
Institutionalized Racism: A Syllabus
May 31, 2020
How can we help students understand George Floyd's death in the context of institutionalized racism?
The Wright Brothers: Babysitters Extraordinaire
September 23, 2022
Wilbur and Orville Wright may not have been “first in flight,” but they were first in taking care of their nieces and nephews on the weekends.
Robert Hayden’s Relatable Fatigue
April 22, 2020
There’s a constant attention to the burdens of history in Robert Hayden’s poems. Even amid the beauties of life, the ghosts of the past linger.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Radical Project Isn’t Finished
March 14, 2019
A fiery advocate against gender discrimination, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s radicalism reveals itself in her argument for the Equal Rights Amendment.
The Linguistics of Mass Persuasion: How Politicians Make “Fetch” Happen (Part I)
February 10, 2016
Inspired by the Gretchen famous line in the film Mean Girls, Chi Luu explores how politicians mobilize language to sway public opinion.
How Black-Owned Record Stores Helped Create Community
December 7, 2020
What was it like for Black American music lovers during the age of segregation to find a place they could call their own?
A Mini History of the Tiny Purse
May 29, 2019
The purse has always been political, a reflection of changing economic realities and gender roles.
Workplace Burnout is Nothing New
June 15, 2019
Doctors were talking about the dangers of chronic stress, exhaustion, and anxiety back in 1909, predicting dire consequences if the symptoms were ignored.
Stage Death: From Offstage to in Your Face
September 21, 2016
Death on stage has a long, gory history. From Ancient Greece to 19th century Paris to The Walking Dead. Why does theatre like death so much?
How 19th Century Scientists Predicted Global Warming
December 17, 2019
Today’s headlines make climate change seem like a recent discovery. But Eunice Newton Foote and others have been piecing it together for centuries.
How Language and Climate Connect
July 10, 2019
While we’re losing biological diversity, we’re also losing linguistic and cultural diversity at the same time. This is no coincidence.
Edmund Dulac’s Fairy Tales Go to War
December 16, 2022
One of the best-known illustrators of the “golden age of children’s gift books,” Dulac was also a subtle purveyor of Allied propaganda during the Great War.
The Algerian War: Cause Célèbre of Anticolonialism
June 29, 2022
On July 5, 1962, Algeria declared its independence after 132 years of French occupation. The transition was chaotic and violent, but inspired revolutionaries worldwide.
Kolkata and Partition: Between Remembering and Forgetting
August 10, 2022
In West Bengal’s capital city, suppressing the painful history of the 1947 Partition allows for the celebration of moments of endurance and success.
Beware the Ides of March. (But Why?)
March 15, 2022
Everybody remembers that the Ides of March was the day Julius Caesar was assassinated. But what does it mean, and why that day?
How Veterans Created PTSD
November 9, 2021
Now a cultural staple, PTSD is a newer diagnosis. How have conceptions of trauma morphed and what does it mean for US institutions and society?
The Meaning of Time in The Hour Glass
October 13, 2022
Writings from a women's prison in the 1930s grapple with philosophical questions on time and life. “The mere lapse of years is not life.”
The Devastation of Black Wall Street
July 5, 2017
Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1921. A wave of racial violence destroys an affluent African-American community, seen as a threat to white-dominated American capitalism.
Teaching Black Women’s Self-Care during Jim Crow
October 6, 2021
Maryrose Reeves Allen founded a wellness program at Howard University in 1925 that emphasized the physical, mental, and spiritual health of Black women.
Far From Folsom Prison: More to Music Inside
November 29, 2022
Johnny Cash wasn't the only superstar to play in prisons. Music, initially allowed as worship, came to be seen as a rockin' tool of rehabilitation.
The Annotated Oppenheimer
March 7, 2024
Celebrated and damned as the “father of the atomic bomb,” theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer lived a complicated scientific and political life.
Charlottesville Syllabus: Readings on the History of Hate in America
August 16, 2017
The history of racism and ethnic hate in America is long and deep. What are the cultural, economic, and political currents that led us here?
