The Unbearable Middle Passage
In the eighteenth century, doctors recognized melancholy as a disease endemic to groups forcibly displaced from their homes, particularly enslaved Africans.
How Street Dogs Spend their Days
Generally lazy, often friendly, the dogs of India know how to relax.
Carbon Offsets for the Hadza People, Swedish Meals, and Freedom in Taoism
Well-researched stories from Vox, Aeon, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Paying Moms to Breastfeed in Medieval Europe
The idea of offering remuneration to women for breastfeeding—even their own children—wasn’t unusual in late medieval and early modern Europe.
The Red Woodstock: Not Quite According to Plan
The 1973 World Festival of Youth and Students highlighted the paradoxes inherent in the East German socialist project.
How Queer Jews Reclaimed Yiddish
Queer Yiddishkeit challenges the notion that Yiddish is inherently heteronormative or conservative.
National Parks Are for Everyone
The majority of national park visitors—roughly seventy-eight percent—are white? Why, and why does that need to change?
How We All Got in Debt
Consumer debt shapes American lives so thoroughly that it seems eternal and immortal, but it’s actually relatively new to the financial world.
The Long History of Same-Sex Marriage
Same-sex marriages, in all possible configurations and with all possible motivations, have taken place throughout the history of the United States.
Plant of the Month: Poplar
Poplar—ubiquitous in timber, landscape design, and Indigenous medicines—holds new promise in recuperating damaged ecosystems.