Engraved portrait of Empress Matilda of Flanders, wearing a crown and holding a scepter, circa 1100.

Empress Matilda, George R. R. Martin’s Muse

Like the fictional character she inspired, Matilda was at the center of a civil war, fighting her own relatives for control of the royal throne.
Leonardo da Vinci

The Destructive Myth of the Universal Genius

Excusing bad behavior from actors viewed as exceptional has led to supremely destructive moments in history. How'd we get from da Vinci to Hitler?
Marie Stopes in her laboratory, 1904

Counting Orgasms With Marie Stopes

Before gall wasp expert Alfred Kinsey turned to the study of human sexuality, another biologist made her move.
Title page for Sinners in the hands of an angry God, 1741

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated

Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.
John Addington Symonds, 1889

Putting Gay Men Back Into History

In the late nineteenth century, historian John Addington Symonds fought back against his colleagues’ refusal to acknowledge historical same-sex relationships.
A scientist with staring eyes pours liquid from one test tube to another in

The Evolution of the Mad Scientist

The crazed caricature of genius was largely inspired by now-debunked late-Victorian ideas about how species change.
Friedrich Schlegel

What Does It Mean To Be German?

A German scholar's work on India, meant to foster European unity, instead may have sown the seed of nationalism.
A Sea Bishop and a Sea Monk

Martin Luther’s Monsters

Prodigies, or monsters, were opaque and flexible symbols that signaled that God was sending some message.
60s exchange floor

Are Free Markets Fictional?

Back in the 1940s, when America's post-war economic system was taking shape, many popular economists agreed that “free markets” were a fiction.
group of graduates

New Graduates’ Favorite JSTOR Articles

When JSTOR saved the day...Recent college grads remember the articles that helped them with their research before graduation.