The Ethics of On-Screen Violence in The Sympathizer
Film scholar Sylvia Shin Huey Chong offers a feminist reflection on the theme of rape in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Sympathizer.
Demystifying Sovereign Wealth Funds
Opaque, state-controlled investment vehicles, sovereign wealth funds wield enough power to redirect or disrupt global economies.
Painting Race
The construction and expression of race by skin color literally became visible in Western art in the eighteenth century.
The Governess, in Her Own Written Words
Although few women were employed as governesses in Victorian Britain, their potential for social and class transgression left Britons awash with worry.
Eisenhower and the Real-Life Nautilus
The voyage of the USS Nautilus under the North Pole in August 1958 was a strategic use of technological spectacle as propaganda under Eisenhower.
Endangered: North American Cricket
Cricket was played and cheered in the United States and Canada in the nineteenth century. Why did it fall out of favor with sports fans?
Monastic Chant: Praising God Out Loud
For medieval monks, chant was often a crucial part of worship, but theologians had different ideas about how the words and sounds helped evoke piety.
The Scientists, the Engineers, and the Water Wheel
In the eighteenth century, a mathematician, an astronomer, and an engineer each tried to apply their expertise to increasing the efficiency of water wheels.
Reclaiming a Coal Town
When the coal business tanked in the 1930s, the company town of Pardeesville, Pennsylvania, briefly transformed itself through collective action.
Printing Anarchy
The stock figure of the “anarchist” is a bomb-thrower or assassin, but political scientist Kathy E. Ferguson argues it should be a printer.