What Veterans’ Poems Can Teach Us About Healing on Memorial Day
A scholar and military veteran proposes that poems written by veterans that focus on honoring those who have died in service can help heal an ailing nation.
A Primer on Settler Colonialism
What is this “settler colonialism” that’s become all the rage? Let’s take a closer look.
When History is a Matter of “National Security”
Since the mid-1990s, Russian authorities have insisted on particular understandings of some parts of the country’s history as a matter of national security.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated
The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
Gray’s Music: Over the Telegraph
Inventor of the telephone Elisha Gray also pioneered the world’s first purpose-built electric musical instrument.
American Individualism and American Power
The American habitus was forged partly by the conquest of Native land and partly by the experiences of superiority and entitlement among white enslavers.
Tagore in Saigon: Culture, Contradictions, Champagne
Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to Vietnam in 1929 fanned the debate about the region’s potential future without the French.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Animal Sacrifice and the Greek Gods
The ritual of animal sacrifice in ancient Greece brought humans closer to the gods even as it defined their differences.
Putting the Red in Soviet Color Film
A Soviet alternative to Disney cartoon became a state ideal, but the three-color process behind Silly Symphony cartoons wasn’t easy to perfect.
Weird and Wondrous Sea Cucumbers
These spiny or slimy ocean creatures display an astonishing diversity of appearances, behaviors and lifestyles. Many are increasingly threatened.