The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated
Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
Joseph McCarthy in Wheeling, West Virginia: Annotated
Senator Joseph McCarthy built his reputation on fear-mongering, smear campaigns, and falsehoods about government employees and their associates.
Natural History: A Reading List
This annotated bibliography samples scholarship on the rich—and difficult—history of natural history.
Twin Curtains: Oz and the USSR
Aleksandr Volkov’s The Wizard of the Emerald City reimagined L. Frank Baum’s classic, imbuing the story with a love of labor for readers in the Eastern bloc.
From The Host to Parasite: Hollywood’s Hidden Hand
Bong Joon-ho’s films interrogate the ways modern Korean culture has been shaped by the post-war relationship between the United States and South Korea.
A Holiday Pantomime
With origins in the theater of the early eighteenth century, “panto” remains a crucial element of the holiday season in Great Britain and Ireland.
The Contested Legacy of Miné Okubo’s World War II Art
Okubo’s art showed the work of Japanese Americans forced to rehabilitate both the “enemy alien” on the home front and the enemy in the Pacific after the war.
In the Palm of Your Hand
Palm reading, also known as palmistry or chiromancy, has fascinated us as a practice and a party trick for centuries.
Like, It’s a History of Air Guitar, Dudes!
With roots in the motions and biases of vaudeville, burlesque, mesmerism, and minstrelsy, “air playing” with imaginary instruments long predates rock music.
Biking While Black in DC
Because of its political structure, Washington became a test case in federally mandated laws that enabled racially discriminatory policing of public space.