From the cover of Rising Sun by Michael Crichton

Colorful Plots and Racial Undertones in Modern Crime Fiction

Tarik Abdel-Monem argues that American crime fiction reflects mainstream prejudices in depicting mixed-race individuals as either deformed or superhuman.
Title page from Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, 1899

The Legends of Charles G. Leland’s Aradia

Leland’s interest in magic and folklore led him to northern Italy in search of remnants of “the old religion” of witchcraft.
Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories

Wartime Injustice: When “Yes” Means “No”

The mother-daughter relationship in Hisaye Yamamoto’s fiction is a stand-in for the relationship between the American nation-state and the Nisei male citizens.
The cover of A Passage to India on top of a 1920s map of India

The Sociopolitical Impact of A Passage to India

E. M. Forster’s novel captured not only the tensions between colonizers and colonized but also the fraught internal politics that shaped India’s fight for independence.
The cover of The Marking of the English Working Class by EP Thompson

E. P. Thompson and the American Working Class

Published in 1963, Thompson’s influential The Making of the English Working Class quickly led to questions about the nature of the American working class.

Feminist Bookstore News by the Numbers

Now part of Reveal Digital, Feminist Bookstore News was a vital source of information (and gossip) amid a flourishing in publishing fifty years ago.

What We’re Reading 2024

It’s become a tradition: the writers and editors at JSTOR Daily share our thoughts on this year's pleasure reading.
Eva Bouchard's house in Péribonka

Quebec, Louis Hémon, and Maria Chapdelaine

Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine grew from his views as a French immigrant writer on the rural life of early twentieth-century Quebec.
The cover of The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort

Dr. Sex and the Anarchist Sex Cookbook

Known for his runaway bestseller The Joy of Sex, Alex “Dr. Sex” Comfort was an anarchist and a pacifist who preferred love and sex to war crimes.
Portrait of L.M. Montgomery

L. M. Montgomery’s Plain Jane

Though not as well known as Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery's Jane of Lantern Hill also explores domesticity, freedom, and, yes, Prince Edward Island.