Gwyneth Paltrow at Toronto International Film Festival, 2012

The Glamorous Tradition of Hollywood Lifestyle Advice

For more than a century, Hollywood has been offering Americans lifestyle advice on how to live better, and the public has been gobbling it up.
WPA mural

Why Do We Take Pride in Working for a Paycheck?

In the modern imagination, work is a source of pride, but early labor unions regarded hourly toil in industry as "wage slavery."
KKK members parade in Virginia, 1922

The History of the KKK in American Politics

In the 1920s, during what historians call the KKK's “second wave,” Klan members served in all levels of American government.
Ivanka Trump

De Facto First Ladies: A Definitive Guide

Ivanka Trump will be assuming many duties of the First Lady. She won't be the first presidential daughter to take “the hardest unpaid job in the world.”
Christ healing the paralytic, by Anthony van Dyck (c. 1619)

Will We Always Have the Poor Among Us?

To end poverty, public policy must provide much more than economic resources
yoga studio

The False Promises of Wellness Culture

Wellness is everywhere today: juice cleanses, Soulcycle classes, self-care. The roots of the trend can be found in nineteenth-century health-consciousness.
Portrait of The Bard cut up symmetrically

The Art of Cutting Up Shakespeare

We should acknowledge the connection between cuts as bodily violence and cuts as violent ways of making art.
Keeley Cure ad

Inside a Nineteenth-Century Quest to End Addiction

In 1880, Dr. Leslie E. Keeley promised a cure for the disease of drunkenness. The community he developed influenced our understanding of treating addiction.
Chrysler Building

On The Black Skyscraper: An Interview with Literary Critic Adrienne Brown

Early skyscrapers changed the ways we see race, how we see bodies, how we perceive and make judgments about people in the world.
The inside of a newsroom

Four Hard Truths about Fake News

Skeptical, self-aware interaction with digital data is the critical foundation upon which democracy may be maintained, explains media scholar Alexandra Juhasz.