American Immigrant Literature Gets an Update
Despite the historical gulf between canonical and recent immigrant writing, one constant is the mark that new immigrant artists leave on US literature.
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe: Annotated
Poe's 1841 story, arguably the first detective fiction, contains many tropes now considered standard to the genre, including a brilliant, amateur detective.
Dark Academia’s Roots Lie in the Campus Novel
Revolving around student life, campus novels present a microcosm of the outside world, staged far from the humdrum of middle-class realities.
How to Remember the Alamo?
A historian’s childhood visit to the Texas monument prompts questions about history, memory, and multiculturalism.
Philanthropy and the Gilded Age
As the HBO series The Gilded Age suggests, charity allowed wealthy women to play a visible role in public life. It was also a site of inter-class animosity.
America’s Domestic Gurus Are Bad Girls
Why do the pages of shelter magazines for women seem so pristine? The answer is not what you think, according to one scholar.
How Americans Were Taught to Understand Israel
Leon Uris's bestselling book Exodus portrayed the founding of the state of Israel in terms many Americans could relate to.
Nashoba: Not So Interracial, Not So Utopian
In the 1820s, Frances Wright established a community whose major project was the emancipation of enslaved people. Why did it crash and burn?
Four Flowering Plants That Have Been Decidedly Queered
The queer history of the pansy and other flowers.