Yale’s Lost Indian Museum
The (now lost) collection of Native American artifacts at Yale College reveals the mechanics and high cost of the settler-colonialist nation-building project.
Olivia: An Oft-Overlooked Lesbian Novel
It took some fifteen years to bring Dorothy Strachey Bussy’s remarkable roman à clef to print, thanks to André Gide’s lukewarm reception.
Keeping the Baba-Nyonya Culture of Penang Alive
Identity consciousness among Malaysian Chinese Peranakans is on the rise as the Babas and Nyonyas seek to celebrate and preserve their unique heritage.
The Challenges of Regulating Rice in Myanmar
The Myanmar government has regulated its agricultural and export industry through one specific crop: rice. What are the future prospects of the rice economy?
The Dawn of Kicks
Invented for a faddish game in the 1880s, tennis shoes became fashionable when manufacturers, fearing the tennis boom would go bust, pushed them off the lawn.
Pachuca Rebels in 1940s Los Angeles
Like their zoot suit-wearing male counterparts, young Mexican American women rebelled against white, mainstream culture through bold fashion choices.
Marie Bashkirtseff’s Diary
The art student died young, but her diary lived on to inspire future writers, including Anaïs Nin, Katherine Mansfield, and Mary MacLane.
The Flood Behind Bessie Smith’s “Back-Water Blues”
The Mississippi River flood that Smith allegedly memorialized happened weeks after she'd written and released her song. Where was the real “Back Water”?
Where Does Water Come From?
And what does the early modern search for the answer to this question tell us about the “scientific method” we colloquially accept today?
American Immigrant Literature Gets an Update
Despite the historical gulf between canonical and recent immigrant writing, one constant is the mark that new immigrant artists leave on US literature.