Hips don’t lie: The American incognitum July 07, 2020 While the Smithsonian American Art Museum rarely houses fossil remains, an amazing specimen, the original “Peale Mastodon” skeleton, is part of the upcoming exhibition Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture. Read More
Naomi Oreskes: Feminist science is better science July 06, 2020 American public life is rife with questions of scientific judgment. Does red meat really cause cancers and heart disease, or are such fears overblown? How can scientists tell that climate change is occurring and what the effects of global warming might be? Read More
Angèle Christin on Metrics at Work July 05, 2020 During the COVID-19 pandemic more than ever, digital platforms and news websites have become a lifeline for information and interaction for people isolated from face-to-face contact. Angèle Christin goes behind the scenes of our screens, analyzing how news production changed as it moved online. Read More
Adam Sutcliffe on What Are Jews For? July 02, 2020 What is the purpose of Jews in the world? The Bible singles out the Jews as God’s “chosen people,” but the significance of this special status has been understood in many different ways over the centuries. Read More
The Fourth of July, but not 1776: Independence and epidemics in Boston July 02, 2020 The Fourth of July that mattered most to Revolutionary Boston, the Cradle of Liberty, was not the one in 1776 when the thirteen united states issued a declaration of independence to a “candid world.” Rather, it occurred the year before, in 1775, when the stakes were highest for Boston and New England, and in the form of a much quieter and little-known document. Read More
Be Enchanted July 01, 2020 The imaginative and often dangerous world of fairy tales spins common human experience in a way that feels strangely vital. Read More
A brush with nature: Alexander von Humboldt and Frederic Church June 30, 2020 What made Alexander von Humboldt a superstar in the 1800s was Cosmos, his global best-selling, multi-volume series on his scientific observations and international travels. Read More
Fighting the deportation machine June 24, 2020 Javier García Bautista had not been at his station for long on May 17 when someone in the carpentry department of the suburban-Los Angeles shoe factory where he worked yelled out, “The migra is here!” Read More
All at sea: The maritime lives of the ancient Phoenicians June 23, 2020 The Phoenicians were, according to one ancient scholar, ‘the first to plough the sea’. The little ports of the Bronze Age Levant, including Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, lay between the great empires of Egypt, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. Read More
What the world needs now June 23, 2020 This spring I waited out months of coronavirus lockdown in Montreal. Heightened isolation has meant many things. In my life, at least, one rather banal outcome is more email forwards. Read More
A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you June 22, 2020 Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life—money, power, jobs, university admission—should be distributed according to skill and effort. Read More
Keep cool and keep writing June 21, 2020 Editors, amongst many other tasks, are daily faced with the challenge of persuading or pressuring authors to write or finish books. When COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home orders went into effect and I found myself, in addition to being an editor, also suddenly a home-schooling teacher, little did I know that those skills might be transferable. Read More
By Design | The 2020 AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show June 18, 2020 A book’s design communicates to readers before the book even has a chance to. It tells us something essential. The most successful book design goes a step further: it compels us to hold the book in our hands for a little while, turn it over, leaf through it, and admire its form. Read More
Erica McAlpine on The Poet’s Mistake June 17, 2020 Keats mixed up Cortez and Balboa. Heaney misremembered the name of one of Wordsworth’s lakes. Poetry—even by the greats—is rife with mistakes. Read More
Masada: A heroic last stand against Rome June 17, 2020 Two thousand years ago, 967 Jewish men, women, and children reportedly chose to take their own lives rather than suffer enslavement or death at the hands of the Roman army. Read More