Mary Shelley’s Obsession with the Cemetery
The author of Frankenstein always saw love and death as connected. She visited the cemetery to commune with her dead mother. And with her lover.
Porklife: Building a Better Pig
Can we reconcile our growing appetite for meat with our desire to treat factory animals better?
Sociophysics and Econophysics, the Future of Social Science?
Can empirical data about human behavior make the “soft” sciences more like the “hard” ones? New interdisciplinary fields are voting yes.
Casa Luis Barragán, Sacred Space of Mexican Modernism
A tour of the Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán’s house and studio reveals a surprise with a touch of the divine.
Why Male Midwives Concealed the Obstetric Forceps
The history of obstetric forceps shows the dangers of privatizing important medical know-how.
“Telling the Bees”
In nineteenth-century New England, it was held to be essential to whisper to beehives of a loved one’s death.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I Became Black in America
Adichie speaks on the meaning of blackness, sexism in Nigeria, and whether the current feminist movement leaves out black women.
What Dorothy Porter’s Life Meant for Black Studies
Dorothy Porter, a Black woman pioneer in library and information science, created an archive that structured a new field.
