The Living Dead Embody Our Worst Fears
Zombie movies are scary fun, but they also help us examine our anxieties about contagious disease and unstoppable chaos.
The Ecological Prescience of Dune
Frank Herbert’s novel isn't just about space messiahs, giant sandworms, and trippy space drugs. At its core, the sci-fi epic is about ecology.
The Question of Race in Beowulf
J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal scholarship on Beowulf centers a white male gaze. Toni Morrison focused on Grendel and his mother as raced and marginal figures.
A Decades-in-the-Making Artwork in a Dormant Volcano
James Turrell is building an observatory that uses the human eye instead of optical instruments. It may soon be open to the public for the first time.
The Assimilationist Mythology of the X-Men
Stan Lee's X-Men comics explored themes of prejudice and bigotry. So why weren't the original comics that diverse?
Depressed People Aren’t Villains—Nor Are They Werewolves
Our tendency to view people with mental disorders as monsters instead of patients has a history that dates back to the 1400s.
The Revelatory Rabbits of Watership Down
On Christmas Eve we lost Richard Adams, the British writer whose 1972 novel Watership Down became one of the bestselling children’s books of all time.
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Roald Dahl
What don't you know about the famous children's book author?