Barbara Hammer

A Legendary Filmmaker’s Notes on Teaching

Experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer was also a teacher, and wrote about how she kept the "artist-self" alive while working her day job.
Astronauts Anne McClain during her ASCAN EVA Skills 3 Training. Photographer: Lauren Harnett

How Women Helped to Develop the First Spacesuit

NASA recently cancelled an all-female spacewalk, citing a lack of spacesuits. Ironically, women played a key role in creating the very first spacesuits.
Richard Wright

Richard Wright Helped Bring Mental Healthcare to Harlem

The famous novelist worked to fight the psychological cost of black oppression.
A yellow vest protester in Paris, France

Do the French Just Like Protesting?

France's Yellow Vests have been protesting for months on end. Such protests are an integral part of France's culture.
Collage of contemporary poets

10 Ekphrastic Poems

Broadly defined, an ekphrastic poem describes another work of art. Here are some by Ocean Vuong, Aziza Barnes, Robert Hayden, Frank O’Hara, Danez Smith, and more.
A Wafer of the Latest D-Wave Quantum Computers

What Is a Quantum Computer?

Researchers claim to have turned back time inside a quantum computer. Meanwhile, most of us are still trying to wrap our minds around what that even means.
Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo by Richard Samuel

The Bluestockings

Meet the original Bluestockings, a group of women intellectuals. Their name would eventually become a misogynist epithet -- but it didn't start that way.
A child sitting in front of a window on a bed

Was the One-Child Policy Ever a Good Idea?

China's “one-child” policy has been relaxed, and now married couples may have two children. But according to scholars, the damage is already done.
A man breathing in nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and a man exhibiting its exhilarating effects.

How Medical Researchers Used to Party

There’s always been some fuzziness in our distinctions between medicine and recreational drugs. Just look at nitrous oxide.
Signage reading, Closed for Maintenance, on the side of an island road

This Island Is Closed for Maintenance

The Faroe Islands owe their untouched nature to their remote location and stormy climate. And to a weekend closure.