The Undying Unicorn
What role could a mythical animal play in our lives—centuries after its existence came into question?
Leigh Hunt, the Unstoppable Critic
Convicted and imprisoned for libeling the Prince Regent, Hunt capitalized on his incarceration by turning his prison cell into a newsroom and grand salon.
This One Number on a Form Can Reduce Gender Inequality
Reducing the gap between quantitative evaluation scores for male and female instructors may be as simple as changing a single number.
A Short Course in Justice: the Freedmen’s Bureau Courts
Freedmen’s Bureau courts provided a forum for newly emancipated people in the “uncertain legal landscape” of the defeated Confederacy.
Atlantic Sturgeon Were Fished Almost to Extinction
Ancient DNA reveals how the Chesapeake Bay population changed over centuries.
How to be a Modern Autocrat
In the twenty-first century, dictators are less likely than their predecessors to use violence to suppress dissent, cultivating instead “informational autocracies.”
Joseph Conrad’s Travel Stories Weren’t Black and White
Conrad’s celebration of imperial exploration is accompanied by an acknowledgment that such feats often go hand-in-hand with oppression and exploitation.
Eulalie Mandeville’s Fortune in Court Records
Court records can function as a kind of archive for those without any other paper trail in history: free people of color and the enslaved.
Is There an LGBTQ+ Canon?
An English professor considers the questions raised about selecting queer works for study and discussion when planning a course on LGBTQ+ literature.
The US Army as a Slaveholding Institution
Until the Civil War, US Army officers relied on enslaved servants even while serving in “free states.”