Foreign Germs: The Stigmatization of Immigrants
The stigmatization of immigrants through the language of disease and contagion is as American as apple pie.
How Interwar Britain Saved Their Dogs
Canine distemper became a major threat in Great Britain after World War I. Saving the nation’s dogs depended on an imperfect collaboration.
The Eternal, Essential Apartment
We may think of the apartment building as the ultimate symbol of modern urban living, but as a typology, it dates to antiquity.
From The Host to Parasite: Hollywood’s Hidden Hand
Bong Joon-ho’s films interrogate the ways modern Korean culture has been shaped by the post-war relationship between the United States and South Korea.
Crocodile of a Migraine? An Egyptian Rx
Why the ancient Egyptians did—or did not—recommended strapping a clay crocodile to an aching head.
Simone Weil: Voluntary Worker
The weeks Weil spent working in French factories helped to develop her ideas about the meaning and value of labor.
Working on the (Underground) Railroad
Born a free Black man, William Still kept the books and managed the money for the Philadelphia branch of the Underground Railroad.
Catholics Against Racism
As early as the 1930s, Black Catholic parishioners formed alliances with their white counterparts to put their churches in service of anti-racist goals.
The Hybrid Heroines of “Bollywood Chick Lit”
Material consumption and marriage have different meanings for South Asian American women, and those meanings should shape the way we read Desi “chick lit.”