Charles Darwin and His Correspondents: A Lifetime of Letters
An epistolary network was critical for Darwin’s work, allowing him to obtain new information while sparking fresh ideas in his correspondents’ minds.
Searching for Home in Hmong American Writing
Two significant poetry anthologies deterritorialize home, showing that for Hmong Americans, home can be a process of moving and running despite living in a place.
What Is Punctuation For?
Between the medieval and modern world, the marks used to make writing more legible changed from “pointing” to punctuation.
I Hope This Finds You Well, or, Dude, You Good?
Are formulaic hoping and wishing statements in correspondence evidence of magical thinking?
Subversive Student Writing at Carlisle Indian School
In the early twentieth century, some Anishinaabe students turned writing assignments meant to showcase assimilation into celebrations of resistance.
Digital Overload
How can contemporary biographers contend with the explosion of materials at their disposal?
A Brief History of Literary Cats
There’s nothing like curling up with a good book and a soft cat. Even better is a book with a cat in it.
How to Fight with Friends in Ancient Egypt
A scholar finds that some ancient Egyptians who were literate wrote annoyed letters to friends.
How to Use Zotero and Scrivener for Research-Driven Writing
This month, I’m doing something a little different with my column: I’m sharing the system I use to write it, so that you can use or adapt my system.