David Edmonds on Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality April 14, 2023 Derek Parfit was an obsessive. For much of his adult life he had two obsessions. Philosophy was one, photography another. Every year, for many years, he would travel to Venice and St. Petersburg and photograph the same buildings, trying to take the perfect shot. Read More
Why economists—and everyone else—should care about hope April 13, 2023 The U.S. is experiencing a nationwide crisis of despair. Despair is not only linked with premature mortality, but with the vulnerability to misinformation that is plaguing our society, our health systems, and our democracy. Read More
Tracing the global travels of Isabella Stewart Gardner April 12, 2023 To describe the fairy-tale effect of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s spellbinding interior is to verge upon the cliché—and yet, the historical bridge between its enchanting atmosphere and the global travels of the museum’s founder and namesake is a complicated one that needs restoration. Read More
Listen in: Three Roads Back April 11, 2023 In Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. Read More
Reproductive justice includes the right to stop contraception April 04, 2023 Contraception rebellion is all over social media these days. Many people are going off of hormonal contraception, digging out their implants, foregoing injections… and pulling on that little IUD string dangling from their cervix. Read More
The origins and importance of talk March 29, 2023 I come from a family of talkers. The household in which I grew up was always noisy. My parents were loud and opinionated, and interrupted and quarreled boisterously with each other. Read More
Gods and Mortals March 28, 2023 Gripping tales that abound with fantastic characters and astonishing twists and turns, Greek myths confront what it means to be mortal in a world of powerful forces beyond human control. Read More
In dialogue: Writing women’s history March 27, 2023 We asked four of our authors the following question: What do we find when we read ‘women’ into histories that often exclude them? Read More
Listen in: The Forest March 25, 2023 Set amid the glimmering lakes and disappearing forests of the early United States, The Forest imagines how a wide variety of Americans experienced their lives. Part truth, part fiction, and featuring both real and invented characters, the book follows painters, poets, enslaved people, farmers, and artisans living and working in a world still made largely of wood. Read More
Venki Ramakrishnan on Virtual You March 24, 2023 What are the prospects of simulating ourselves in a computer? At first sight, this sounds more science fiction than fact. Read More
Paul Laurence Dunbar March 22, 2023 A major poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) was one of the first African American writers to garner international recognition in the wake of emancipation. Read More
Arthur V. Evans on The Lives of Beetles March 20, 2023 With some 400,000 species, beetles are among the largest and most successful groups of organisms on earth, making up one-fifth of all plant and animal species. Read More
Listen in: Algorithms for the People March 15, 2023 Artificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping our world. Police forces use them to decide where to send police officers, judges to decide whom to release on bail, welfare agencies to decide which children are at risk of abuse, and Facebook and Google to rank content and distribute ads. Read More
How to see the world, by Nathaniel Hawthorne March 15, 2023 Sitting before a lake one summer, Nathaniel Hawthorne took a newspaper from his pocket and began to read. His object was not to catch up on the news but to play a trick—to lull nature into a false sense of security, to make it think he was not perceiving the world around him, so he could look up suddenly and see the trees for how they really are. Read More
Pi is magic March 14, 2023 Pi is magic. It is a number that is infinite, universal, transcendental, and irrational. It appears everywhere, and my mathematician friends tell me that Pi is as close to religion as you can get in math. Read More
