American Daredevils
The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.
Can Religion Be Helpful for People With Chronic Pain?
A group of researchers asked this question of a group of patients in secularized Western Europe.
Counting Orgasms With Marie Stopes
Before gall wasp expert Alfred Kinsey turned to the study of human sexuality, another biologist made her move.
Why Asian Universities Are Embracing US Liberal Arts Programs
As schools in the US shift focus to technical or pre-professional programs, Asian institutions are recognizing the benefits of liberal arts education.
Neurasthenia, Vietnamese Style
To self-diagnose with neurasthenia was to identify with modernity and civilization while also recognizing the harms caused by colonial structures.
The Bossa Nova Craze
In the early 1960s, bossa nova was hugely popular in the US thanks to its reinvention as a social dance and its connections with upper-class culture.
Home Pregnancy Tests
Before the arrival of home pregnancy tests, women had to seek answers at the doctor’s office, which was costly, inconvenient, and potentially embarrassing.
Brown v. Board of Education: Annotated
The 1954 Supreme Court decision, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, declared that “separate but equal” has no place in education.
What Was It like to Be an Inuit in London in 1772?
London had long been described as wearying and unreadable, so it's not surprising that Inuit visitors considered it unfathomable and irrational as well.
In Bhutan, Real Citizens Don’t Eat Meat
The fusion of Buddhism and politics in Bhutan has forced “good citizens” to reconsider their relationship with the procurement and consumption of meat.