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María Telón and María Mercedes Coroy in Ixcanul
Arts & Culture

The Development of Central American Film

A new collection of essays examines the reasons behind the recent boom in feature and documentary film-making from Belize to Panama.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Broadside on the Anglo-Dutch wars, attacking Cromwell's aggression against Holland, and domestic tyranny; Cromwell stands in centre, with the tail of a serpent, made up of the gold coins of the Commonwealth

When All the English Had Tails

Where did the myth that English men (and probably women) were hiding tails beneath their clothing come from? And what was that about eggs?

Annotations

"Noah Webster, The Schoolmaster of the Republic," print by Root & Tinker, 1886

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated

Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.

Read Before You Go

The rugged coast of the Isles of Scilly, England, U.K.

Life in the Islands of the Dead

Though part of the mainland county of Cornwall, the Scilly Islands offer visitors an encounter with history and the environment like no other.

Suggested Readings

White rice

Rice, Famine, and the Seven Wonders of the World

Well-researched stories from Atlas Obscura, Yale Environment 360, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Most Recent

Maud Lewis
Art & Art History

Remembering Maud Lewis

A symbol of resilience and resourcefulness, Lewis remains one of Canada’s best-loved and most-celebrated folk artists.
A General View of the Falls of Niagara by Alvan Fisher, 1820
Lifestyle

The Fashionable Tour: or, The First American Tourist Guidebook

Offering advice for visiting Sarasota Springs and other sights, Gideon Davison combined the travel narrative and road book to create a new type of travel guide.

More Stories

Cabinet of Curiosities

Broadside on the Anglo-Dutch wars, attacking Cromwell's aggression against Holland, and domestic tyranny; Cromwell stands in centre, with the tail of a serpent, made up of the gold coins of the Commonwealth

When All the English Had Tails

Where did the myth that English men (and probably women) were hiding tails beneath their clothing come from? And what was that about eggs?

Annotations

"Noah Webster, The Schoolmaster of the Republic," print by Root & Tinker, 1886

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated

Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.

Read Before You Go

The rugged coast of the Isles of Scilly, England, U.K.

Life in the Islands of the Dead

Though part of the mainland county of Cornwall, the Scilly Islands offer visitors an encounter with history and the environment like no other.

Suggested Readings

White rice

Rice, Famine, and the Seven Wonders of the World

Well-researched stories from Atlas Obscura, Yale Environment 360, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Trending

Two arms with tattoos
Education & Society

Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?

And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus?
Broadside on the Anglo-Dutch wars, attacking Cromwell's aggression against Holland, and domestic tyranny; Cromwell stands in centre, with the tail of a serpent, made up of the gold coins of the Commonwealth
Cabinet of Curiosities

When All the English Had Tails

Where did the myth that English men (and probably women) were hiding tails beneath their clothing come from? And what was that about eggs?
A circle of white claymation guys around a black claymation guy
Reading Lists

Racist Humor: Exploratory Readings

An introduction to the history and theory of racist humor and the social role it plays in Western societies.

Long Reads

Garrett Hongo
Arts & Culture

I Hear America Singing

Japanese American poet Garrett Hongo is a guiding spirit to a glorious cacophony, an exuberant collective thrum made of different tongues and peoples.
The Goddess Nekhbet, Temple of Hatshepsut
Arts & Culture

Vulture Cultures

By turns worshipped and reviled, the bird frequently associated with death has appeared in art works for thousands of years. Here’s a short history.
A photograph from the Mars Perseverance rover, 2021
Natural Science

NASA’s Search for Life on Mars

It’s a rocky road for its rovers, a long slog for scientists—and back on Earth, a battle of the budget.
Arts & Culture

A Garden of Verses

As commonplace books evolved into anthologies, they developed reputations as canonical works, their editors curating tomes as vibrant as the loveliest bouquets.

Editors' Picks

Arts & Culture

Doing Math with Intellectual Humility

Math class is an opportunity to teach students both how to use conjecture to arrive at knowledge and how to learn from the logic of peers.
Arts & Culture

Willie Mae Thornton Deserves Your Full Attention

In a meditative new biography, DJ and scholar Lynnée Denise examines the mysteries and trials in the life of the legendary performer.
Politics & History

The Fourteenth Amendment: Annotated

Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution addresses citizenship rights, due process, and equal protection under the law.
Education & Society

Class Production

A collection of high school yearbooks from Cleveland captures the rise, fall, and uncertain future of the American middle class.
Education & Society

Intellectual Humility: Foundations and Key Concepts

Research about intellectual humility has exploded in the past decade. Psychologist Elizabeth Krumrei-Mancuso offers an annotated bibliography of key texts.

Quirky History

A Spectro-Chrome, c. 1925

Colorful Lights to Cure What Ails You

Between 1920 and the 1960s, tens of thousands of people received treatment with a Spectro-Chrome to address various ailments.
A railroad worker enjoys a sandwich and bottle of milk during his lunch break, circa 1950

Mother’s—and Others’—Milk

Said to bestow strength and beauty, to purify body and soul, and to yield success and happiness, milk’s image is as adulterated as the liquid itself.
“The Obscene M.D.” Colored lithograph. Morality of Modern Medicine Mongers. British College of Health, 1852.

Putting an End to Obscene Quackery

When medical professionals joined anti-vice campaigners to censor publications about sex in the 1800s, they found themselves wielding a double-edged sword.

Shared Collections on JSTOR

A collage of cover images from Johns Hopkins’ Collection of Middle East-inspired Sheet Music

Sheet Music: the Original Problematic Pop?

A Johns Hopkins University curator of sheet music and pop culture discusses a “Middle East-inspired” sheet-music collection that’s anything but.
James G. Birney

The Power of Pamphlets in the Anti-Slavery Movement

Black-authored print was central to James G. Birney’s conversion from enslaver to abolitionist and presidential candidate.
A front exterior view, Everyman's House

The Tiny House Trend Began 100 Years Ago

In 1924, sociologist and social reformer Caroline Bartlett Crane designed an award-winning tiny home in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Syllabus

An illustration of a hand holding a set of hand cuffs

A True Crime Syllabus

How did we become so obsessed with “true crime”? This multidisciplinary syllabus shows how we view crime as a whole and how those views have changed over time.
GAZA CITY, GAZA - JULY 24: A general view of the Beit Hanoun neighborhood on July 24, 2017 in Gaza City, Gaza. For the past ten years Gaza residents have lived with constant power shortages, in recent years these cuts have worsened, with supply of regular power limited to four hours a day. On June 11, 2017 Israel announced a new round of cuts at the request of the Palestinian authorities and the decision was seen as an attempt by President Mahmoud Abbas to pressure Gaza's Hamas leadership. Prior to the new cuts Gaza received 150 megawatts per day, far below it's requirements of 450 megawatts. In April, Gaza's sole power station which supplied 60 megawatts shut down, after running out of fuel, the three lines from Egypt, which provided 27 megawatts are rarely operational, leaving Gaza reliant on the 125 megawatts supplied by Israel's power plant. The new cuts now restrict electricity to three hours a day severely effecting hospital patients with chronic conditions and babies on life support. During blackout hours residents use private generators, solar panels and battery operated light sources to live. June 2017 also marked ten years since Israel began a land, sea and air blockade over Gaza. Under the blockade, movement of people and goods is restricted and exports and imports of raw materials have been banned. The restrictions have virtually cut off access for Gaza's two million residents to the outside world and unemployment rates have skyrocketed forcing many people into poverty and leaving approximately 80% of the population dependent on humanitarian aid. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings

How can we help students begin to make sense of the current and recurring violence in Israel and Gaza?
Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.

Reading Lists

Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet

The Art of Impressionism: A Reading List

The first exhibition of paintings that would come to be described as Impressionism opened in Paris on April 15, 1874.
From the cover of the newspaper El Grito del Norte, July 1973

Chicanx Studies: A Foundational Reading List

The field of Chicanx studies continues to expand, embracing analyses of racialization, gender, sexuality, Indigineity, and trans-ethnic identity.
People wait for trains on the platform at Kyiv train station on February 28, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Ukraine, Russia, and the West: A Background Reading List

Research reports and scholarly articles on the history of the Ukraine-Russia conflicts of the past and possible paths for peace.

Roosevelt was a proponent of imperialism and racial domination, the architect of the interventionist corollary allowing the United States to become a hemispheric occupying force.

Island in the Potomac

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

Viewing the projection of a solar eclipse using a colander

Watching an Eclipse from Prison

For incarcerated people, being able to experience something collectively with those beyond the walls is a type of reprieve that buoys the soul and psyche.
From the cover of Volume 7, Issue 6 of The Angolite, 1982

The Cost of Inflation in Prison

In prisons across the country, the long history of legal forced labor intersects with present-day inflation.
A page from The Angolite that features a photograph of a prison guard holding a shotgun while watching prisoners work in a field.

Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation

"Except as punishment for a crime," reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.

Annotations

Map of the Missouri Compromise, 1820

Missouri Compromise of 1820: Annotated

The “compromise” attempted to answer the question of whether the Missouri territory would be admitted to the Union as a “slave” or “free” state.
A full-page newspaper advertisement published in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. It was paid for by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South.

“Heed Their Rising Voices”: Annotated

In 1960, an ad placed in the New York Times to defend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists touched off a landmark libel suit.
The first page of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution

The Fourteenth Amendment: Annotated

Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution addresses citizenship rights, due process, and equal protection under the law.

Mathematics

Doing Math with Intellectual Humility

Math class is an opportunity to teach students both how to use conjecture to arrive at knowledge and how to learn from the logic of peers.
Photo taken in the Bourbaki Congress of 1938 in Dieulefit

The Mathematical Pranksters behind Nicolas Bourbaki

Bourbaki was gnomic and mythical, impossible to pin down; his mathematics just the opposite: unified, unambiguous, free of human idiosyncrasy.
Karate chop

The Physics of Karate

A human hand has the power to split wooden planks and demolish concrete blocks. A trio of physicists investigated why this feat doesn't shatter our bones.

Sustainability & The Environment

Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters glue themselves to barrels outside the Treasury on April 07, 2022 in London, England.

Who Can Just Stop Oil?

Groups such as Just Stop Oil are calling for change, but their aims need to be considered with respect to more than a reductionist slogan.
Coal burning power plant with pollution in a twilight situation.

Not All Forms of Carbon Removal Are Created Equal

The carbon market and offsetting system have created “carbon cowboys” and perpetuated forms of neo-colonialism and other inequities.
An illustration of a globe being heated over a fire on a spit

Grilling the Globe

Could meat taxes help to curb over-consumption of beef and mitigate climate change?

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