Taking Liberties With Biblical Stories
In the Christian New Testament, Saint John the Baptist and Salome never meet. Why, then, does she appear at the bars of his cell in Guercino’s moody painting?
Uneven Impacts: The Virtual Water Trade
The virtual water trade reveals significant disparities between water-rich states and their trade partners.
Early Doctors Diagnosed Disease by Looking at Urine
When uroscopy became trendy, it caused a minor scandal within the early medical profession.
Mindful March: The Unexpected Benefits of Mindfulness
Mindfulness has been linked with ethical decision making and avoidance of cognitive biases. Can it lead to better performance at work?
Celebrate World Bear Day!
The joy and concern we feel on World Bear Day perfectly represents our complicated—and sometimes contradictory—feelings about these massive mammals.
Virginia Woolf’s Only Play
Based on Woolf's own family, Freshwater was a tongue-in-cheek comedy full of inside jokes, written to entertain members of the Bloomsbury Group.
The Vermont Knitters
A major labor law dispute simmered for decades. At its center? Women being paid to do piecework on knitting machines in their homes.
Lost in Translation: Ezra Pound’s Imagism and the Angel Island Poets
As Pound was making a splash with “translations” of Chinese poetry, immigrants from China were etching poems of despair into the walls of a detention facility.
The Ballad of Railroad Bill
The story of Morris Slater, aka Railroad Bill, prompts us to ask how the legend of the "American outlaw" changes when race is involved.
Ghost Cats of the East
Why do people claim to see cougars in the eastern United States when the cats are now extremely rare in that part of North America?